'SO 


Edgar  Allan  Poe 


A  BOOK  OF 
SHORT  STORIES 


SELECTED  AND  EDITED 
BY 

STUART  P.  SHERMAN 

PROFESSOR  OF  ENGLISH  IN  THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  ILLINOIS 


NEW  YORK 
HENRY  HOLT  AND  COMPANY 


COPYRIGHT,  1914 

BY 
HENRY  HOLT  AND  COMPANY 


CONTENTS 

The  figures  in  the  second  column  indicate  the  pages  of  the  Notes  and  Comment 
and  Biographical  Sketches. 

PAGE    PAGE 

INTRODUCTION 

I.  Establishing  Standards  for  the  Short  Story  in 

Prose .      vii 

II.  Types  of  the  Short  Story     .         ...         .      xii 
III.  Critical  Considerations        ....    xxvi 

DESCRIPTIVE  BIBLIOGRAPHY xxxiii 

WASHINGTON  IRVING 3°S 

Rip  Van  Winkle 3 

NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE '310 

The  Minister's  Black  Veil 26 

Ethan  Brand 43 

EDGAR  ALLAN  POE 314 

The  Fall  of  the  House  of  Usher  ....       64 
cThe  Gold-Bug .87 

CHARLES  DICKENS 3T9 

The  Signal-Man 131 

FRANK  STOCKTON 321 

The  Lady,  or  the  Tiger 148 

THOMAS  HARDY 322 

The  Three  Strangers 157 

ROBERT  Louis  STEVENSON        .         .         .         .         .  326 

Will  O'  the  Mill         .         .         .         .  *      .         .185 
The  Sire  De  Maletroit's  Door     ...        .         .         .217 

SIR  JAMES  MATTHEW  BARRIE 330 

The  Courting  of  T'nowhead's  Bell       .         .         .     242 


vi  Contents 

PAGE     PAGE 

O.  HENRY 333 

Phoebe 266 

RUDYARD  KIPLING 335 

The  Man  Who  Was 286 

NOTES  AND  COMMENT 305 

QUESTIONS 340 

Portrait  of  Edgar  Allan  Poe Frontispiece 


INTRODUCTION 


ESTABLISHING  STANDARDS   FOR  THE   SHORT 
STORY  IN  PROSE 

AMERICANS  who  are  sensitive  to  the  assertion  that 
America  has  originated  nothing  in  literature  point  to  Ed- 
gar Allan  Poe  as  the  originator  of  the  short  story.  In  the 
ordinary  sense  of  the  word,  of  course  he  was  nothing  of  the  s 
sort.  The  origin  of  the  short  story  is  lost  in  the  unhistorical 
morning  of  human  society.  Not  to  speak  of  the  ancient 
tales  of  Rome,  Greece,  Arabia,  India,  we  know  that  there 
were  numberless  fine  short  stories  in  English  and  other 
modern  tongues  hundreds  of  years  before  Poe  was  born. 
The  mystery  of  narrative  effectiveness  was  not  unknown 
to  the  nameless  authors  of  the  English  and  Scottish  popu- 
lar ballads.  Before  the  end  of  the  fourteenth  century 
Chaucer  had  made  a  book  of  short  stories,  the  Canterbury 
Tales,  quite  as  vivid,  various,  and  artful  as  this  of  ours. 
Painter's  Palace  of  Pleasure,  a  prose  collection  of  the  Eliza- 
bethan Age,  contained  sufficient  of  "human  interest"  and 
dramatic  situation  to  furnish  plots  for  Shakespeare  and  a 
generation  of  great  dramatists.  And  so  we  might  proceed 
to  show  that  short  stories  in  prose  or  verse  of  more  or  less 
merit  have  appeared  in  every  age.1  Is  it  a  question  of  the 
origination  of  the  "modern"  short  story?  Poe  himself 
declared  in  1842  that  "we  are  far  behind  our  progenitors 

1  See  The  Short  Story  in  English,  by  Henry  Seidel  Canby.    New 
Yo*k:  Henry  Holt  and  Co.,  1909. 

vii 


viii  Introduction 

in  this  department  of  literature,"  and  pointed  to  the  earlier 
numbers  of  Blackwood's  and  to  the  British  magazines  in  gen- 
eral for  superior  examples  conforming  to  his  own  standards.1 
The  importance  of  Poe  is  not  that  he  originated  a  literary 
form  but  that  he  defined  it  sharply  and  illustrated  it  bril- 
liantly at  a  critical  moment  in  its  history.  He  appeared 
at  a  time  when  the  reading  public,  entering  upon  a  period 
of  immense  expansion,  was  calling  for  the  multiplication  of 
magazines,  and  editors  were  calling  for  the  multiplication 
of  reading  matter.  Poe — himself  an  editor — perceived 
and  pointed  out  the  significance  for  the  author  of  the  new 
periodical  publications:  "The  increase,  within  a  few  years, 
of  the  magazine  literature,  is  by  no  means  to  be  regarded 
as  indicating  what  some  critics  would  suppose  it  to  in- 
dicate— a  downward  tendency  in  American  taste  or  in 
American  letters.  It  is  but  a  sign  of  the  times,  an  indica- 
tion of  an  era  in  which  men  are  forced  upon  the  curt,  the 
condensed,  the  well-digested  in  place  of  the  voluminous— 
in  a  word,  upon  journalism  in  lieu  of  dissertation.  ... 
I  will  not  be  sure  that  men  at  present  think  more  pro- 
foundly than  half  a  century  ago,  but  beyond  question  they 
think  with  more  rapidity,  with  more  skill,  with  more 
tact,  with  more  of  method  and  less  of  excrescence  in  the 
thought."  2  As  a  writer  of  tales  Poe  held  himself  to  "  more 
of  method  and  less  of  excrescence  in  the  thought"  than 
characterized  the  work  of  most  of  his  contemporaries  and 
predecessors.  His  exemplifications  of  terseness  and  system 
in  composition  have  served  as  models  from  his  day  to  this. 
His  discussions  of  the  purpose  and  principles  of  the  short 
story  writer,  particularly  in  his  review  3  of  Hawthorne's 

1  Selections  from  the  Critical  Writings  of  Poe,  by  F.  C.  Prescott. 
New  York:  Henry  Holt  and  Co.,  1909,  pp.  96,  97. 

2  The  Complete  Works  of  Edgar  Allan  Poe,  edited  by  James  A. 
Harrison.    New  York:  Thomas  Y.  Crowell  &  Co.    Vol.  XVI,  p.  82. 

3  See  Prescott's  Selections. 


Standards  for  the  Short  Story  ix 

Twice-Told  Tales  and  in  the  "Philosophy  of  Composi- 
tion," 1  have  served  as  the  starting  point  for  all  subsequent 
treatises  on  technique.  It  may  be  fairly  maintained  that 
he  established  standards  for  the  short  story  in  prose,  to 
which  all  subsequent  writers  have  generally  striven  to  con- 
form. Let  us  enumerate  the  chief  articles  of  Poe's  doc- 
trine— some  of  which,  by  the  way,  may  be  found  in 
Aristotle's  Poetics. 

(i)  A  good  short  story  must  produce  upon  the  reader  a  3 
perfectly  unified  effect  or  impression.  "A  skilful  literary 
artist  has  constructed  a  tale.  If  wise,  he  has  not  fashioned 
his  thoughts  to  accommodate  his  incidents;  but  having 
conceived,  with  deliberate  care,  a  certain  unique  or  single 
effect  to  be  wrought  out,  he  then  invents  such  incidents — 
he  then  combines  such  events  as  may  best  aid  him  in  es- 
tablishing this  preconceived  effect.  If  his  very  initial  sen- 
tence tend  not  to  the  outbringing  of  this  effect,  then  he  has 
failed  in  his  first  step."  2  "_Keeping  originality  always  in 
view- — for  he  is  false  to  himself  who  ventures  to  dispense 
"with  so  obvious  and  so  easily  attainable  a  source  of  in- 
terest— I  say  to  myself,  in  the  first  place,  '  Of  the  innumer- 
able effects,  or  impressions,  of  which  the  heart,  the  in- 
tellect, or  (more  generally)  the  soul  is  susceptible,  what 
one  shall  I,  on  the  present  occasion,  select? '"  3  As  it  hap- 
pens, Poe  illustrates  the  "Philosophy  of  Composition" 
by  an  account  of  the  order  of  his  mental  processes  in  com- 
posing his  poem  "The  Raven,"  of  which  the  intended 
effect  was  sadness  awakened  by  the  death  of  a  beautiful 
woman.  But  it  is  clear  that  Poe's  prose  tales,  as  well  as 
his  poems,  were  written  after  an  exact  determination  of  the 
total  impression  to  be  produced  by  them. 

1  See  Prescott's  Selections. 

2  Ibid.,  pp.  94-95- 
8  Ibid.,  p.  151. 


x  Introduction 

(2)  No  stroke  should  be  made  in  a  short  story,  which 
does  not  advance  the  action  towards  its  denouement  or  con- 
tribute to  the  premeditated  effect.    "In  the  whole  com- 
position there  should  be  no  word  written,  of  which  the 
tendency,  direct  or  indirect,  is  not  to  the  one  preestablished 
design.    And  by  such  means,  with  such  care  and  skill,  a 
picture  is  at  length  painted  which  leaves  in  the  mind  of 
him  who  contemplates  it,  a  sense  of  the  fullest  satisfaction. 
The  idea  of  the  tale  has  been  presented  unblemished,  be- 
cause undisturbed;  and  this  is  an  end  unattainable  by  the 
novel."  l 

(3)  There  is  but  one  absolutely  right  order  of  arrange- 
ment for  the  details  of  a  story.    This  perfect  order  few 
authors  actually  achieve;  but  all  good  artists  strive  for  it. 
"Plot,"  he  says,  "is  very  imperfectly  understood,  and  has 
never  been  rightly  denned.     Many  persons  regard  it  as 
mere  complexity  of  incident.    In  its  most  rigorous  accepta- 
tion, it  is  that  from  which  no  component  atom  can  be  removed, 
and  in  which  none  of  the  component  atoms  can  be  displaced, 
without  ruin  to  the  whole;  2  and  although  a  sufficiently  good 
plot  may  be  constructed,  without  attention  to  the  whole 
rigor  of  this  definition,  still  it  is  the  definition  which  the 
true  artist  should  always  keep  in  view,  and  always  en- 
deavor to  consummate  in  his  works."  3 

(4)  The  short  story,  like  all  forms  of  fiction,  must  show 
"originality,"  that  is  to  say,  the  power  of  so  refashioning 

1  Prescott's  Selections,  p.  95. 

*  Cf.  "The  Fable,  being  an  imitation  of  an  action,  should  be  an 
imitation  of  an  action  that  is  one  and  entire,  the  parts  of  it  being  so 
connected,  that  if  any  one  of  them  be  either  transposed  or  taken  away, 
the  whole  will  be  destroyed  or  changed;  for  whatever  may  be  either  re- 
tained or  omitted,  without  making  any  sensible  difference,  is  not 
properly  a  part."  The  Poetics  of  Aristotle,  New  York:  Cassell  and 
Co.,  1901,  p.  31.  It  may  be  observed  that  this  single  sentence  implies 
everything  in  our  articles  (i),  (2),  and  (3). 

3  Prescott's  Selections,  p.  320;  see  also  pp.  310-311. 


Standards  for  the  Short  Story  xi 

the  stuff  of  experience  as  to  produce  novel  effects.  Poe 
praises  Hawthorne  warmly  on  the  ground  that  he  possesses 
originality  in  high  degree.  "Mr.  Hawthorne's  distinctive 
trait  is  invention,  creation,  imagination,  originality — a 
trait  which,  in  the  literature  of  fiction,  is  positively  worth 
all  the  rest.  .  .  .  The  inventive  or  original  mind  as  fre- 
quently displays  itself  in  novelty  of  tone  as  in  novelty  of 
matter.  Mr.  Hawthorne  is  original  at  all  points."  L  Orig- 
inality reveals  itself  in  the  choice  of  subject,  in  the  disposi- 
tion of  details,  in  the  total  "atmosphere"  of  the  piece:  it  is 
the  peculiar  personality  of  the  author  impressing  a  special 
character  upon  all  his  work.  A  short  story  deserves  the 
name  of  art  only  when  it  is  a  "reproduction  of  what  the 
Senses  perceived  in  Nature  through  the  veil  of  the  soul."  : 

(5)  A  short  story  should  be  short  enough  to  be  perused 
at  a  single  sitting  of  from  a  half  hour  to  one  or  two  hours.3 
This  prescription  is  not  made  in  order  to  set  up  an  arbitrary 
distinction  between  a  short  story  and  a  novel.  It  is  offered 
rather  as  a  condition  essential  to  securing  that  unity  of  im- 
pression which  is  the  true  distinguishing  object  of  the  short 
story  writer.  The  novelist  expects  to  make  a  series  of  va- 
rious impressions,  and  can  afford  to  allow  his  reader  breath- 
ing spaces  between  them.  But  in  the  case  of  "the  talc 
proper,"  as  Poe  put  it,  "simple  cessation  in  reading,  would, 
of  itself,  be  sufficient  to  destroy  the  true  unity."  During 
the  hour  of  perusal,  the  soul  of  the  reader  must  remain 
without  interruption  or  weariness  under  the  writer's  con- 
trol.4 

Bringing  these  points  into  line,  we  may  say  that,  ac- 

1  Prescott's  Selections,  p.  97. 

2  Ibid.,  p.  306. 

3  Cf.  "In  the  fable  a  certain  length  is  requisite,  but,  that  length 
must  be  such  as  to  present  a  whole  easily  comprehended  by  the 
memory."    The  Poetics  of  Aristotle,  p.  29. 

4  Prescott's  Selections,  p.  94. 


xii  Introduction 

cording  to  Poe's  practice  and  precept,  a  short  story  is:  A 
brief,  original  narrative,  free  from  excrescence,  of  events 
cunningly  arranged  for  the  production  of  a  single  pre- 
determined effect.  If  this  definition  fits  all  the  stories  in 
this  book,  it  will  serve  our  purposes  better  than  most  of  the 
definitions  devised  by  recent  critics.  Professor  Brander 
Matthews,  for  example,  says:  "The  Short-story  fulfils  the 
three  false  unities  of  the 'French  classic  drama:  it  shows 
one  action,  in  one  place,  on  one  day.  A  Short-story  deals 
with  a  single  character,  a  single  event,  a  single  emotion,  or 
the  series  of  emotions  called  forth  by  a  single  situation."  x 
This  is,  at  most,  a  description  of  a  tendency  rather  than  of 
an  established  fact.  If  you  will  examine  the  stories  in  our 
collection  with  reference  to  Professor  Matthews's  def- 
inition, you  will  be  inclined  to  believe  that  the  authors 
have  generally  acted  upon  Poe's  assurance  that  the  only 
unity  with  which  the  artist  needs  to  concern  himself  is  the 
unity  of  effect. 

II 
TYPES  OF  THE  SHORT  STORY 

We  have  discussed  hitherto  those  characteristics  which 
all  good  short  stories  have  in  common;  we  have  discussed, 
so  to  speak,  the  genus  short  story.  How  shall  we  distin- 
guish the  various  species  of  the  genus?  The  possible  prin- 
ciples of  classification  are  almost  unlimited,  and  it  is  per- 
haps worth  the  student's  while  to  experiment  with  several 
of  them.  We  may  group  our  stories  with  reference  to  the 

1  The  Philosophy  of  the  Short  Story,  p.  16.  Longmans,  Green,  and 
Co.,  1901.  Of  course  the  maker  of  the  definition  is  at  liberty  to  say 
that,  "Rip  Van  Winkle,"  "The  Minister's  Black  Veil,"  "The  Gold- 
Bug,"  "The  Fall  of  the  House  of  Usher,"  "The  Courting  of  T'now- 
head's  Bell,"  and  "Phoebe"  are  not  "Short-stories." 


Types  of  the  Short  Story  xiii 

emotion  which  they  excite  in  us  as  tragic,  comic,  pathetic,  £ 
farcical,  etc.  We  may  group  them^wIthTreTerence~tb"the 
principal  passion  involved  in  them  as  love  stories,  murder 
stories,  revenge  stories,  etc.  We  may  group  them  with 
reference  to  the  significant  characters  who  appear  in  them 
as  fairy  stories,  ghost  stories,  animal  stories,  etc.  We  may 
group  them  with  reference  to  certain  rather  vaguely  de- 
nned literary  categories  as  romantic,  realistic,  idealistic, 
naturalistic,  etc.  We  may  group  them  with  reference  to 
the  occupations  and  social  strata  presented  as  stories  of  £ 
peasant  life,  slum  life,  military  life,  clerical  life,  etc.  We 
may  group  them  with  reference  to  geographical  setting  as 
stories  of  New  England,  California,  Tennessee,  Scotland, 
India,  etc.  And  whatever  series  of  groups  we  chose,  we 
should  easily  find  a  long  list  of  specimens  to  represent  each 
of  our  divisions.1 

R.  L.  Stevenson,  who  like  Poe  was  both  an  author  and 
an  analyst  of  stories,  suggested  still  another  method  of 
classification  which  is  perhaps  more  fundamental  and  more 
interesting  than  any  of  these.  He  grouped  his  own  tales 
not  with  reference  to  the  effect  that  they  produce  upon  the 
reader  but  with  reference  to  the  nature  of  the  impulse  in 
which  they  originated  in  his  own  mind.  "There  are,"  he 
said,  "so  far  as  I  know,  three  ways,  and  three  ways,  only, 
of  writing  a  story.  You  may  take  a  plot  and  fit  characters 
to  it,  or  you  may  take  a  character  and  choose  incidents  and 
situations  to  develop  it,  or  lastly  .  .  .  you  may  take  a  y 
certain  atmosphere  and  get  actions  and  persons  to  realize  A 
and  express  it."  :  The  division  here  suggested  is  interest- 

1  Elaborate  classifications  may  be  found  in  Barrett's  Short  Story 
Writing,  Ch.  II,  and  in  Esenwein's  Writing  the  Short  Story,  Pt.  I, 
Ch.  II;  but  elaborate  classifications  generally  result  in  a  confusion 
with  regard  to  the  principle  of  division. 

2  The  Life  of  Robert  Louis  Stevenson,  by  Graham  Balfour.    New 
York:  Charles  Scribner's  Sons,  1908.    Vol.  II,  pp.  168-169. 


xiv  Introduction 

ing,  because  it  provokes  the  student  to  discover  what  in 
the  case  of  any  particular  story  was  the  starting  point  in 
the  composition.  It  is  fundamental,  because  it  is  based 
upon  the  three  elements  present  in  every  story — a  scene, 
an  actor,  and  an  act. 

It  must  be  admitted  that  in  some  of  the  finest  stories 
it  is  extremely  difficult,  if  not  impossible,  to  determine 
which  of  the  three  elements  receives  the  predominant  em- 
phasis. A  composer  like  Irving  unites  plot,  characters,  and 
atmosphere  into  a  skilful  and  intricate  harmony,  and,  to 
continue  the  musical  analogy,  it  is  hard  to  say  which  part 
carries  the  "air."  What  is  it  in  "Rip  Van  Winkle"  that 
Irving  strove  chiefly  to  "realize  and  express" — the  notion 
of  a  man  falling  asleep  to  wake  years  afterwards,  or  the 
character  of  the  loveable  village  ne'er-do-well,  or  the 
dreamy  and  legend-haunted  valley  of  the  Hudson?  In 
the  case  of  Hardy's  "Three  Strangers"  we  may  feel  reason- 
ably sure  that  no  one  of  the  characters  contained  the  original 
germ  of  the  story;  but  we  cannot  separate  the  interest  of 
the  other  two  elements — the  plot-interest  developed  by 
the  juxtaposition  at  a  convivial  gathering  of  a  condemned 
man  and  his  executioner,  from  the  interest  of  the  intensely 
realized  Wessex  "atmosphere"  which  envelops  the  whole 
situation.  So,  too,  in  Barrie's  "Courting  of  T'nowhead's 
Bell"  there  is  the  strictest  interdependence  of  plot,  char- 
acters, and  setting,  and  one  is  at  a  loss  to  declare  whether 
the  author  set  out  with  a  desire  to  "express"  Thrums,  or 
to  illustrate  the  characters  of  two  Scotch  lovers,  or  to 
realize  the  humorous  possibilities  of  a  series  of  odd  situa- 
tions. Distinct  species  or  types  of  the  short  story,  accord- 
ing to  the  division  suggested  by  Stevenson,  are  recognizable 
only  when  two  of  the  component  elements  are  manifestly 
subordinate  to  the  third. 

"  You  may  take  a  plot  and  fit  characters  to  it"    If  the  ef- 


Types  of  the  Short  Story  xv 

feet  is  to  be  secured  by  a  plot  to  which  characters  and 
setting  are  clearly  subordinate,  it  must  be  a  very  thrilling 
or  a  very  ingenious  plot.  Poe,  who  prided  himself  upon 
the  variety  as  well  as  upon  the  excellence  of  his  tales, 
worked  out  at  least  two  distinct  varieties  of  what  we  may 
call  the  plot-story: — a  thrilling  variety  and  an  ingenious 
variety. 

In  the  former  sort,  of  which  "The  Pit  and  the  Pendu- 
lum" will  serve  as  an  example,  the  interest  is  sustained  by 
an  intrinsically  exciting  situation — in  this  instance,  by  a 
man  bound  fast  beneath  a  slowly-descending  crescent- 
shaped  knife.  In  such  a  situation  any  man  whatsoever 
becomes  instantly  the  object  of  nervous  solicitude;  we  can 
dispense  in  his  case  with  "atmosphere"  and  traits  of  char- 
acter. Most  short  stories  of  highly  extraordinary  adven- 
ture may  be  related  more  or  less  closely  to  this  variety. 
In  Stockton's  "The  Lady  or  the  Tiger?",  for  example,  the 
barest  suggestion  of  humanity  and  the  briefest  indication 
of  barbaric  setting  suffice  to  render  the  situation  plausible 
and  captivating  to  the  imagination;  and  in  the  same 
author's  sea  yarns,  like  "The  Wreck  of  the  Thomas 
Hyke,"  and  in  his  fairy  tales  of  science,  like  "Negative 
Gravity,"  it  is  perfectly  obvious  that  the  characters  and 
the  locality  were  painted  upon  the  plot,  and  might,  as  it  \ 
were,  be  erased  and  replaced  by  a  half-dozen  differentj 
decorations  without  impairing  the  essential  element  in  the 
conception  of  the  story.  Stevenson's  "The  Sire  de  Male- 
troit's  Door"  is  a  very  superior  specimen  of  the  thrilling 
variety  of  the  plot-story — superior  because  a  fine  artist 
has  done  his  utmost  to  give  firm  historical  coloring  to  his 
scene  and  vitality  to  a  set  of  somewhat  conventional 
romantic  figures;  yet  one  can  hardly  doubt  that  this  scene 
and  these  figures  were  elaborated  after  the  author  had 
established  as  his  center  of  interest  a  situation  in  which 


xvi  Introduction 

some  man  or  other  is  forced  to  choose  between  marriage  or 
death — the  lady  or  the  tiger! 

The  ingenious  variety  of  plot-story  which  Poe  called  the 
"tale  of  ratiocination"  is  represented  in  our  collection  by 
"The  Gold-Bug"  alone.  Other  examples  by  Poe  are 
"The  Murders  in  the  Rue  Morgue,"  "The  Mystery  of 
Marie  Roget,"  and  "The  Purloined  Letter."  Now  it  has 
been  sometimes  asserted  that  "The  Gold-Bug"  is  really 
two  stories — a  story  of  the  quest  for  buried  treasure  and 
a  story  of  the  deciphering  of  a  cryptogram,  stitched  to- 
gether in  the  middle;  but  this  conception  is  erroneous. 
The  quest  and  discovery  of  the  treasure  is  the  dramatic 
demonstration  that  the  cryptogram  has  been  correctly 
deciphered.  "The  Gold-Bug"  is  plotted  on  precisely  the 
same  system  as  "The  Purloined  Letter":  a  problem  is 
presented,  the  solution  is  given,  and  then  the  steps  which 
led  to  the  solution  are  explained.  In  other  words,  "The 
Gold-Bug"  has  the  essential  features  of  a  "detective 
story."  The  scene  is  carefully  adjusted  to  the  problem, 
and  the  principal  character  is  designed  expressly  to  solve 
it.  The  detective  story,  which  in  recent  years  has  attained 
great  popularity  at  the  hands  of  Sir  Arthur  Conan  Doyle 
and  his  rivals,  preserves  its  special  type  characteristics 
with  remarkable  distinctness.  Indeed,  it  has  seemed  pos- 
sible to  Miss  Carolyn  Wells  to  write  an  entire  volume  on 
"The  Technique  of  the  Mystery  Story" — a  volume  de- 
voted almost  exclusively  to  the  consideration  of  problems 
for  the  literary  detective. 

"  You  may  take  a  character  and  choose  incidents  and  situa- 
tions to  develop  it"  It  is  clear  that  Stevenson's  "Will  o' 
the  Mill"  was  composed  in  this  fashion.  The  effect  aimed 
at  is  the  charm  of  a  tranquilly  contemplative  and  re- 
flective soul.  This  effect  is  produced  chiefly  by  showing 
how  this  soul  deals  with  three  main  "incidents"  of  life — the 


Types  of  the  Short  Story  xvii 

choice  of  a  career,  love,  and  death.  The  effect  is  further 
emphasized  by  the  selection  of  a  scene  and  enveloping 
atmosphere  of  natural  beauty  and  unruffled  peace.  There 
is  just  enough  development  in  the  soul  of  Will  to  link  the 
three  incidents  of  his  earthly  pilgrimage  into  one  contin- 
uous gently  rising  and  falling  action;  otherwise,  "Will  o' 
the  Mill"  would  be  classed  rather  as  a  character  sketch 
than  as  a  story.  Mr.  Kipling's  "William  the  Conqueror," 
in  The  Day's  Work,  similarly  illustrates  the  characters  of 
men  and  women  who  "do  things."  Though  in  this  case 
the  time  is  limited  to  the  duration  of  a  famine  in  a  certain 
district  in  India,  the  incidents  are  somewhat  loosely  re- 
lated— it  would  certainly  be  possible  to  remove  or  trans- 
pose some  of  them  without  noticeable  injury  to  the  design. 
To  produce  a  character-story  firmly  unified  and  at  the 
same  time  vigorously  dramatic  a  different  procedure  must 
be  adopted:  a  critical  situation  must  be  discovered  in  which 
the  conduct  of  the  principal  character  or  characters  in  a 
single  act  or  closely  articulated  series  of  acts  betrays  the 
temper  and  habits  of  a  lifetime.  Obviously,  characters 
with  sharp  edges,  marked  idiosyncrasies,  or  dominating 
passions  most  readily  and  completely  reveal  themselves 
in  the  isolated  acts  and  emergencies  of  their  lives.  A  de- 
lightfully humorous  illustration  may  be  seen  in  Frank 
Stockton's  "Asaph":  a  man  who  for  unnumbered  years 
has  loafed  and  smoked  his  pipe  at  the  expense  of  a  sister, 
being  deprived  of  his  creature  comforts,  suddenly  ex- 
hibits an  active  ingenuity  and  a  dramatic  passion  of  in- 
dolence issuing  in  a  victorious  assurance  that  he  will  be 
able  for  the  rest  of  his  days  to  smoke  his  pipe  and  loaf  at 
the  expense  of  a  wife.  Similarly  focused  in  a  single  critical 
situation  is  the  character-revelation  in  Mrs.  Mary  Wilkins 
Freeman's  "A  New  England  Nun,"  and  in  several  other 
delicate  delineations  of  New  England  types.  Mr.  Kip- 


xviii  Introduction 

ling's  "The  Courting  of  Dinah  Shadd,"  likewise  centered 
upon  a  single  definite  situation,  achieves  the  exposure  of 
Sergeant  Mulvaney's  passions  and  ideas  by  presenting 
him  in  dramatic  relations  with  no  less  than  three  other 
clearly  realized  characters,  and  by  allowing  him  to  relate 
the  event  in  his  own  rich  slang  and  dialect.  Thomas 
Hardy's  "An  Imaginative  Woman,"  in  Wessex  Tales, — a 
study  of  a  morbidly  sentimental  character — attains  a  singu- 
lar intensity  of  effect  through  a  climactic  series  of  related 
situations  in  which  one  identical  passion,  a  fantastic  but 
overmastering  yearning,  variously  expresses  itself. 

Relatively  speaking,  first  rate  stories  in  which  plot  and 
scene  are  plainly  subordinate  to  character  are  not  very 
abundant.  Poe,  for  example,  created  a  number  of  rather 
striking  maniacs,  but  one  questions  whether  any  of  his 
tales  originated  in  a  conception  of  character:  his  "William 
Wilson"  is  a  good  subject  for  debate. 

"  You  may  take  a  certain  atmosphere  and  get  actions  and 
persons  to  realize  and  express  it.7'  Stevenson  pointed  to  one 
of  his  own  stories  as  an  illustration  of  this  type.  "I'll  give 
you  an  example,"  he  said,  " — 'The  Merry  Men.'  There 
I  began  with  a  feeling  of  one  of  those  islands  on  the  west 
coast  of  Scotland,  and  I  gradually  developed  the  story  to 
express  the  sentiment  with  which  that  coast  affected  me." 
What  is  the  nature  of  this  feeling  for  "atmosphere,"  and 
what  are  the  elements  which  constitute  "atmosphere"? 
Stevenson  partly  answered  this  question  in  a  passage  of 
Vailima  Letters  written  in  his  South  Sea  island  home  in  the 
year  preceding  that  of  his  death:  "It  pours  with  rain  from 
the  westward,  very  unusual  kind  of  weather;  I  was  stand- 
ing out  on  the  little  verandah  in  front  of  my  room  this 
morning,  and  there  went  through  me  or  over  me  a  wave  of 
extraordinary  and  apparently  baseless  emotion.  I  literally 
staggered.  And  then  the  explanation  came,  and  I  knew 


Types  of  the  Short  Story  xix 

I  had  found  a  frame  of  mind  and  body  that  belonged  to 
Scotland,  and  particularly  to  the  neighborhood  of  Col- 
lander.  Very  odd  these  identities  of  sensation,  and  the 
world  of  connotations  implied;  highland  huts,  and  peat 
smoke,  and  the  brown,  swirling  rivers,  and  wet  clothes,  and 
whisky,  and  the  romance  of  the  past,  and  that  indescribable 
bite  of  the  whole  thing  at  a  man^  heart,  which  is — or 
rather  lies  at  the  bottom  of — a  story."  l  To  express  in  a 
tale  this  atmosphere  constituted  of  highland  huts,  peat 
smoke,  swirling  rivers,  wet  clothes,  whisky,  and  the  ro- 
mance of  the  past,  one  must  take  persons  whose  lives  have 
been  shaped  and  stamped  and  dyed  by  these  elements,  and 
one  must  take  actions  which  are  inseparably  related  to  the 
persons  as  consequences  of  the  characteristics  imposed 
upon  them  by  the  scene  and  the  total  environment.  There 
results  what  has  often  been  called  the  "  local-color "  story. 
Bearing  in  mind  that  local  color  may  appear  in  every 
element  of  a  story — in  action,  character,  language,  as  well 
as  in  the  mere  physical  setting — we  may  say  that  since  the 
middle  of  the  last  century  the  majority  of  notable  short 
story  writers,  especially  in  America,  have  been  local- 
colorists.  It  does  not  follow  that  every  one  of  these  writers 
has  consciously  begun  the  composition  of  each  of  his  stories 
with  a  vague  feeling  of  an  atmosphere  which  he  desired  to 
express.  The  point  is  rather  that,  in  an  age  generally  de- 
manding realism  in  fiction  and  profoundly  impressed  by 
the  relation  of  people  to  their  environment,  they  have  made 
choice,  once  for  all,  of  some  more  or  less  definite  locality, 
have  intensely  studied  it,  and  have  reproduced  its  peculiar- 
ities of  " color"  in  the  very  stuff  of  their  art.  This  is  a 
rather  different  procedure  from  that  described  by  Mrs. 
Wharton  in  the  opening  paragraphs  of  "The  Confessional" 

1  Vailima  Letters — Letters  and  Miscellanies  of  Robert  Louis  Steven- 
son.   New  York:  Charles  Scribner's  Sons,  1909,  p.  238. 


xx  Introduction 

(in  Crucial  Instances),  where  the  narrator  tells  how  a 
''craving  for  local  color"  made  him  a  deliberate  collector 
of  foreign  "pigment"  at  a  restaurant  frequented  by  the 
Italian  mill-hands  at  Dunstable.  To  indicate  a  locality 
by  a  few  superficial  splashes  is  an  easily  acquired  trick;  to 
express  a  locality  through  the  entire  stuff  and  texture  of  a 
story  is  possible  only  when  a  feeling  for  locality  lies,  as 
Stevenson  says,  "at  the  bottom"  of  it.  Barring  such 
writers  as  Henry  James,  who  is  cosmopolitan  and  concerned 
rather  with  social  than  with  geographical  areas,  and  bar- 
ring the  writers  of  the  detective  story,  to  whom  the  plot  is 
always  the  primary  consideration,  it  may  be  said  that 
local  color,  in  our  broad  sense  of  the  word,  is  the  most  con- 
spicuous distinguishing  mark  of  the  authors  of  the  short 
story  since  Poe.  Technique,  plot-formulas,  elementary 
types  of  character  they  possess  in  common,  but  the  dis- 
tinguishing colors  of  pioneer  California  were  perceived  and 
appropriated  by  Bret  Harte; 1  what  makes  Wessex  dif- 
ferent from  Lincolnshire  was  Thomas  Hardy's  discovery; 
the  wide  realm  of  India  Kipling  holds  as  his  demesne; 
decadent  New  England  is  shared  by  Mrs.  Freeman,  Sarah 
Orne  Jewett,  Margaret  Deland,  and  Alice  Brown;  Thrums 
belongs  to  Barrie;  old  New  Orleans  to  Cable;  old  Virginia 

1  In  an  article  on  "The  Rise  of  the  'Short  Story'"  published  in  the 
Cornkill  Magazine  of  July,  1899,  Bret  Harte  modestly  declines  the 
credit  for  originating  the  short  story  in  America,  but  he  seems  on  the 
whole  to  accept  the  credit  for  opening  the  vein  of  "local  color."  A 
good  story  was  written  in  Poe's  time,  he  says,  "  but  it  was  not  the 
American  short  story  of  to-day.  It  was  not  characteristic  of  Amer- 
ican life,  American  habits,  nor  American  thought.  It  was  not  vital 
and  instinct  with  the  experience  and  observation  of  the  average  Amer- 
ican; it  made  no  attempt  to  follow  his  reasoning  or  to  understand  his 
peculiar  form  of  expression — which  it  was  apt  to  consider  vulgar;  it 
had  no  sympathy  with  those  dramatic  contrasts  and  surprises  which 
are  the  wonders  of  American  civilization;  it  took  no  account  of  en- 
vironment and  of  geographical  limitations;  indeed,  it  knew  little  of 
American  geography." 


Types  of  the  Short  Story  xxi 

to  Page;  the  Georgia  plantations  to  Joel  Chandler  Harris; 
the  Tennessee  mountains  to  Charles  Egbert  Craddock;  the 
Middle  West  to  Hamlin  Garland,  Octave  Thanet,  and 
Stewart  Edward  White;  Alaska  to  Jack  London;  Texas  and 
the  "Tenderloin"  to  O.  Henry;  and  so  on.1 

From  this  great  mass  of  realistic  short  stories  so  firmly 
rooted  in  definite  soils  and  in  the  observed  life  of  our  con- 
temporaries, we  must  set  off  an  older  variety  in  which 
setting  and  atmosphere  are  faintly  historical  or  wholly  the 
fabrication  of  the  romantic  imagination — a  variety  which 
pleases  precisely  because  of  its  remoteness  from  ordinary 
experience.  Horace  Walpole's  Castle  of  Otranto,  though 
not  a  short  story,  strikingly  illustrates  the  genesis  of  this 
kind  of  tale.  It  originated  in  a  dream  of  which  in  the 
morning,  as  the  author  said,  "all  I  could  recover  was,  that 
I  had  thought  myself  in  an  ancient  castle  (a  very  natural 
dream  for  a  head  like  mine,  filled  with  Gothic  story),  and 
that  on  the  uppermost  banister  of  a  great  staircase  I  saw 
a  gigantic  hand  in  armor.  In  the  evening  I  sat  down  to 
write,  without  knowing  in  the  least  what  I  intended  to  say* 
or  relate."  :  The  Castle  of  Otranto  is,  then,  a  perfect  ex- ] 
ample  of  a  story  developed  by  getting  "actions  and  persons 
to  realize  and  express"  an  imaginary  and  unlocalized  scene. ' 
Evidently  the  experience  of  Coleridge  was  similar  when,  in 
consequence  of  a  dream,  he  sat  down  to  write  his  famous 
"Kubla  Khan":  what  remained  in  his  memory,  what  he 
transferred  to  paper,  was  the  "stately  pleasure-dome," 
"Alph,  the  sacred  river,"  "the  caverns  measureless  to 
man,"  "the  sunny  spots  of  greenery,"  "the  deep  romantic 
chasm,"  "  the  mighty  fountain,"  the  shadow  floating  "mid- 

1  See  The  American  Short  Story,  by  Elias  Lieberman.    Ridgewood, 
New  Jersey:  The  Editor,  1912. 

2  See  Introduction  to  The  Castle  of  Otranto  by  Henry  Morley. 
London:  Cassell  &  Co.,  1901,  pp.  5-6. 


xxli  Introduction 

way  on  the  waves" — a  setting,  in  short,  suggestive  and 
wildly  imaginary,  of  which  the  meaning  was  never  ex- 
pressed in  act  or  character.  With  "  Kubla  Khan  "  may  in- 
structively be  compared  Tennyson's  "  Mariana,"  another 
poem  containing  two  elements  of  a  romantic  tale:  an  op- 
pressively melancholy  setting  made  predominant  by  its 
development  through  eight  lines  of  each  of  the  seven 
stanzas,  and  a  melancholy  character  expressing  the  setting 
in  a  four-line  refrain.  Poe's  imagination  had  fed  upon  such 
tales  and  poems  as  these.1  It  is  a  fairly  safe  guess  that  his 
"Fall  of  the  House  of  Usher"  originated  like  them  in  the 
setting — in  the  conception  of  the  house  itself,  an  ancient 
ruin  crumbling  into  a  tarn.  It  is  certain  at  any  rate  that 
the  shadowy  human  figures  and  their  obscure  acts  and  re- 
lations are  employed  but  as  means  to  express  the  dominat- 
ing personality  of  the  house,  of  which  the  fall  gives  the  final 
emphasis  to  an  impression  of  mysterious  and  overwhelming 
gloom. 

Some  analysts  of  technique — Professor  Pitkin,  for  ex- 
ample, in  his  The  Art  and  Business  of  Story  Writing — range 
alongside  of  the  fundamental  types  which  we  have  just 
been  distinguishing  another  type — the  story  with  a  theme, 
purpose,  or  moral.  It  is  unquestionably  true  that  a  theme 
may  arise  in  the  author's  mind,  and  clamor  to  be  put  into 
a  story,  before  either  character  or  plot  or  setting  has  pre- 
sented itself  in  his  consciousness.  Hawthorne  records  such 
suggestions  in  his  American  Note-Books: 2 

"  A  story  to  show  how  we  are  all  wronged  and  wrongers, 
and  avenge  one  another."  (p.  107.) 

"There  is  evil  in  every  human  heart,  which  may  remain 

xSee  the  illuminating  sections  on  "The  Gothic  Romance"  and 
"The  Renovation  of  Gothic  Romance"  in  The  Development  of  the  Eng- 
lish Novel,  by  Wilbur  L.  Cross.  New  York:  The  Macmillan  Co.,  1900. 

2  The  citations  are  from  Vol.  IX  of  the  Standard  Library  Edition 
of  Hawthorne's  works  published  by  Houghton,  Mifflin  and  Co. 


Types  of  the  Short  Story  xxiii 

latent,  perhaps,  through  the  whole  of  life;  but  circum- 
stances may  arouse  it  to  activity.  To  imagine  such  cir- 
cumstances." (p.  43.) 

But  much  more  frequently  even  with  Hawthorne,  who 
is  the  preeminent  moralist  among  the  short  story  writers,  a 
symbol 1  or  a  situation  or  a  character  or  a  setting  presented 
itself  first,  and  the  meaning  or  moral  was  evolved  later. 
The  following  examples  will  illustrate  each  of  these  four 
sorts  of  originating  impulse: 

A  symbol:  "A  snake  taken  into  a  man's  stomach  and 
nourished  there  from  fifteen  years  to  thirty-four,  torment- 
ing him  most  horribly.  A  type  of  envy  or  some  other 
evil  passion."  (p.  34.) 

A  situation:  "  Suppose  a  married  couple  fondly  attached 
to  one  another,  and  to  think  that  they  lived  solely  for  one 
another;  then  it  to  be  found  out  that  they  were  divorced, 
or  that  they  might  separate  if  they  chose.  What  would 
be  its  effect?  "  (p.  89.) 

A  character:  "  A  woman  to  sympathize  with  all  emotions, 
but  to  have  none  of  her  own."  (p.  109.) 

A  setting:  (i)  "The  scene  of  a  story  or  sketch  to  be  laid 
within  the  light  of  a  street-lantern;  the  time,  when  the 
lamp  is  near  going  out;  and  the  catastrophe  to  be  simul- 
taneous with  the  last  flickering  beam."  (p.  22.) 

(2)  "A  house  to  be  built  over  a  natural  spring  of  inflam- 
mable gas,  and  to  be  constantly  illuminated  therewith. 
What  moral  could  be  drawn  from  this?"  (p.  106.) 

Now,  as  we  are  viewing  the  classification  of  short  stories, 
a  tale  by  Hawthorne  which  originates  in  the  theme,  let  us 
say,  that  " there  is  evil  in  every  human  breast"  is  not  a 
different  species  from  that  which  originates  in  a  conception 
of  a  suitable  place  or  person  or  predicament  for  a  tale.  Of 

1  A  symbol,  strictly  considered,  is  always  a  part  of  the  character, 
the  plot,  or  the  setting. 


xxiv  Introduction 

a  tale  so  originating  we  should  rather  declare  that  the 
theme  had  presented  itself  before  the  processes  of  artistic 
composition  were  started;  so  long  as  it  remained  in  the 
theme-state  it  was  indistinguishable  from  the  germ  of  a 
sermon.  And,  however  important  the  moral  meaning  may 
become  in  the  final  "effect,"  the  moment  that  Hawthorne 
actually  begins  to  compose,  he  must  in  accordance  with 
the  very  constitution  of  a  story,  seize,  as  Stevenson  said, 
upon  one  of  the  three  constituent  elements  and  fit  to  it  the 
other  two.  He  must,  in  other  words,  employ  the  same 
means  to  present  his  theme  that  a  writer  would  employ 
who  had  no  theme  to  present;  his  story  can  therefore  be 
classified  with  reference  to  the  relative  emphasis  upon 
character,  plot,  and  setting. 

Let  us  put  the  matter  in  still  another  way:  the  introduc- 
tion of  a  theme  or  moral  may  be  regarded  as  a  technical 
device  for  intensifying  an  effect  primarily  produced  by 
the  mere  transactions  of  the  story.  It  is  an  appeal  to  the 
reader  to  relate  the  story  directly  to  his  own  experience 
as  an  illustration  of  a  "general  idea" — a  truth  of  universal 
interest.  An  effect,  for  instance,  is  produced  by  the  mere 
appearance  of  a  minister  in  a  black  veil;  but  that  effect 
is  greatly  intensified  by  the  introduction  of  the  theme: 
Every  man  wears  a  black  veil.  An  effect  is  produced  by  the 
mere  relation  of  the  predicament  of  the  goat  who  jumped 
into  a  well  and  could  not  get  out;  but  the  effect  is  intensi- 
fied by  the  "moral"  placed  at  the  conclusion  of  the  ancient 
fable:  Look  before  you  leap.  Mr.  Kipling  in  his  Indian  tales 
frequently  employed  an  ingenious  modification  of  this  de- 
vice. By  introducing  the  theme  or  moral  at  the  beginning 
of  his  story  he  made  it  render  an  additional  service;  in  this 
position,  it  arouses  the  feeling  of  suspense.  Here  are  some 
examples: 

"  As  a  general  rule,  it  is  inexpedient  to  meddle  with  ques- 


Types  of  the  Short  Story  xxv 

tions  of  State  in  a  land  where  men  are  highly  paid  to  work 
them  out  for  you.  This  tale  is  a  justifiable  exception." 
("A  Germ-Destroyer"  in  Plain  Tales  from  the  Hills.) 

"  Some  people  hold  that  an  English  Cavalry  regiment 
cannot  run.  This  is  a  mistake."  ("The  Rout  of  the 
White  Hussars"  in  the  same.) 

"East  of  Suez,  some  hold,  the  direct  control  of  Provi- 
dence ceases.  .  .  .  This  theory  accounts  for  some  of 
the  more  unnecessary  horrors  of  life  in  India:  it  may  be 
stretched  to  explain  my  story."  ("The  Mark  of  the  Beast " 
in  Mine  Own  People.) 

Consider  now  our  specimen  of  the  short  story  by  Kipling, 
"The  Man  Who  Was."  The  author  has  taken  a  plot  in 
some  respects  curiously  similar  to  that  of  "Rip  Van 
Winkle,"  of  which  the  essence  is  this:  a  man  who  has  been 
absent  for  a  long  period  of  years  returns  to  the  scene  of  his 
earlier  life  and  in  a  series  of  interesting  incidents  identifies 
himself  and  his  surroundings.  To  this  plot  Kipling  has 
fitted  an  elaborate  and  impressive  setting,  and  has  filled 
in  the  stage  with  the  necessary  characters.  By  these  means 
is  produced  an  ample  effect  of  terrible  pathos.  But,  not 
content  with  this,  Kipling  screws  up  the  effect  one  degree 
higher  by  the  introduction  of  a  theme  announced  ironically 
in  a  curt  sentence  at  the  outset  of  the  story:  "Let  it  be 
clearly  understood  that  the  Russian  is  a  delightful  person 
till  he  tucks  his  shirt  in." 

Kipling  apparently  passed  this  device  on  to  O.  Henry, 
who  employs  it  in  much  the  same  way.  O.  Henry's  "Help- 
ing the  Other  Fellow"  (in  Rolling  Stones)  begins  with  a 
theme  in  the  form  of  a  question  of  Mulvaney's,  "But  can 
thim  that  helps  others  help  thimselves?"  In  the  second 
paragraph  the  author  makes  a  bow  to  his  celebrated  prede- 
cessor: "As  usual,  I  became  aware  that  the  Man  from 
Bombay  had  already  written  the  story."  As  a  variant 


xxvi  Introduction 

upon  the  plain  moral,  0.  Henry  sometimes  begins  with  a 
somewhat  enigmatic  proverb  which  piques  curiosity,  as  in 
"The  Gold  that  Glittered"  (Strictly  Business):  "A  story 
with  a  moral  appended  is  like  the  bill  of  a  mosquito.  It 
bores  you,  and  then  injects  a  stinging  drop  to  irritate  your 
conscience.  Therefore  let  us  have  the  moral  first  and  be 
done  with  it.  All  is  not  gold  that  glitters,  but  it  is  a  wise 
child  that  keeps  the  stopper  in  his  bottle  of  testing  acid." 
Perhaps  in  most  of  O.  Henry's  stories  of  this  character  it  is 
fairly  obvious  that  the  theme  or  moral  was  formulated 
after  the  story  was  conceived.  In  " Phoebe,"  however,  the 
theme  announced  in  the  preliminary  conversation  and  re- 
sumed in  the  epilogue  is  the  thread  on  which  the  incidents 
of  the  plot  are  strung:  Luck  plays  a  critical  part  in  the 
affairs  of  men  and  nations.  The  theme  of  this  story  may 
be  regarded  nevertheless  as  a  means  of  intensifying  an 
effect  which  is  produced  primarily  through  the  plot. 

Ill 
CRITICAL  CONSIDERATIONS 

The  student  who  reads  recent  essays  and  books  on  the 
subject  will  find  here  and  there  a  good  many  extravagant 
utterances  regarding  the  short  story  as  a  form  and  regard- 
ing the  value  of  the  literature  written  in  that  form.  This 
fact  is  in  curious  contrast  with  Professor  Canby's  state- 
ment that  "a  perfect  short  story,  because  it  is  a  short 
story,  will  be  strangely  undervalued  in  comparison  with 
artistically  second-rate  essay,  drama,  or  verse."  The 
danger  that  the  tale  might  be  undervalued  in  comparison 
with  the  poem  was  felt  long  ago  by  Poe  when  he  said: 
"Were  we  called  upon,  however,  to  designate  that  class  of 
1 4  Study  of  The  Short  Story,  p.  77.  By  H.  5.  Canby :  Holt,  1913. 


Critical  Considerations  xxvii 

composition  which,  next  to  such  a  poem  as  we  have  sug- 
gested, should  best  fulfil  the  demands  of  high  genius — 
should  offer  it  the  most  advantageous  field  of  exercise — we 
should  unhesitatingly  speak  of  the  prose  tale,  as  Mr.  Haw- 
thorne has  here  [in  Twice-Told  Tales]  exemplified  it."  1 
But  the  danger  at  present  seems  to  lie  rather  in  the  direc- 
tion of  enthusiastic  overvaluation  of  the  short  story  in 
comparison  with  the  novel — such  as  appears,  for  instance, 
in  the  introduction  to  a  recent  collection  2  of  modern  short 
stories:  "Gradually  men  have  come  to  see  that  a  perfect 
short  story  demands  an  art  even  more  delicate  and  rare 
than  a  novel.  ...  It  must  not  be  assumed,  however, 
that  because  the  short  story  occupies  but  a  small  canvas 
it  is  therefore  inferior  to  the  novel,  for  this  would  con- 
stitute bulk  as  the  standard  of  value.  .  .  .  The  fact  is 
that  it  is  much  more  difficult  to  write  a  perfect  short  story 
than  a  successful  novel.  It  demands  superior  gifts  of  con- 
centration, of  ingenuity,  of  fantasy,  of  originality,  of 
dramatic  intensity,  of  exquisite  craftmanship.  .  .  .  Amer- 
ica has  not  yet  produced  a  novelist  of  the  calibre  of  Dickens 
or  Thackeray,  of  Meredith  or  Hardy;  but  it  has  produced 
a  host  of  short-story  writers  of  incomparable  excellence." 
That  is  to  say,  we  have  no  writer  who  can  do  the  easy  thing 
which  Thackeray  accomplished,  but  we  have  a  host  of 
writers  who  can  do  the  "much  more  difficult"  thing  which 
Poe  accomplished. 

This,  of  course,  is  pure  absurdity.  The  conclusion  of 
common  sense  is  that  writing  a  satisfactory  short  story  is, 
as  compared  with  writing  a  satisfactory  novel,  a  small  and 
simple  task — not  to  be  undertaken  without  some  talent, 
yet  not  beyond  the  power  of  men  and  women  of  second 

1  Prescott's  Selections,  p.  94. 

2  The  Great  English  Short  Story  Writers,  Vol.  11,  pp.  7,  14,  23. 
By  W.  J.  and  C.  W.  Dawson:  Harpers,  1910. 


xxviii  Introduction 

and  third  rate  talent.  Professor  Pitkin,  who  is  nothing  if 
not  practical,  counsels  the  beginner  in  fiction  to  make  his 
first  experiments  in  the  shorter  form;  for,  as  he  says,  "a 
person  who  can  write  at  all  can  finish  a  score  of  stories 
in  the  time  required  for  one  novel."  l  If  the  advice  is 
sound,  it  is  not  merely  because  the  writer  of  the  short  story 
can  learn  his  technique  and  test  his  powers  and  sell  his 
product  more  expeditiously  than  the  novelist.  The  more 
important  consideration  is  that  an  admirable  short  story 
may  be  written  by  a  very  young  man  with  brief  exercise  of 
ingenuity,  superficial  observation,  and  comparatively  re- 
stricted experience;  but  a  really  admirable  novel  demands 
a  faculty  for  sustained  invention,  an  understanding  of  the 
motives  of  action,  and  a  depth  of  experience,  which  are 
commoner  after  than  before  the  age  of  thirty.  It  is  not  an 
insignificant  coincidence  that  Hawthorne,  Bret  Harte, 
Stevenson,  Stockton,  Barrie,  and  Kipling  had  all  written 
excellent  tales  before  they  achieved  any  success  with  the 
novel.  Nor  is  it  irrelevant  to  note  that  Pamela  was  pub- 
lished when  Richardson  was  fifty-one,  Tom  Jones  when 
Fielding  was  forty-two,  Waverley  when  Scott  was  forty- 
three,  Vanity  Fair  when  Thackeray  was  thirty-six,  The 
Scarlet  Letter  when  Hawthorne  was  forty-six,  Adam  Bede 
when  George  Eliot  was  forty,  and — shall  we  add  it? — 
Joseph  Vance  when  De  Morgan  was  sixty-seven.  That 
Kipling  produced  Plain  Tales  from  the  Hills  when  he 
was  twenty-two  is  not  impossible,  because  it  is  a  fact;  but 
that  Thackeray  should  have  published  Vanity  Fair  when 
he  was  twenty-two  is  inconceivable,  because  literary  his- 
tory has  no  record  of  such  a  feat,  and  because  common 
sense  cries  aloud  that  no  boy  of  that  age  ever  possessed  the 
sheer  stuff  of  experience  which  is  woven  into  that  complex 
web  of  characters  and  events. 

1  The  Art  and  the  Business  of  Story  Writing,  p.  16. 


Critical  Considerations  xxix 

Let  us  then  clearly  recognize  that  the  literature  written 
in  the  form  of  the  short  story  is  in  some  important  respects 
inferior  to  that  written  in  the  form  of  the  novel.  Within 
the  prescribed  limits  of  the  briefer  form,  one — and  that 
perhaps  the  highest — achievement  of  the  writer  of  prose 
fiction  is  virtually  impossible:  that  is,  to  present  a  rich  and 
complex  character  in  the  processes  of  development.  In 
order  to  exhibit  Richard  Feverel  or  David  Copperfield  or 
Pendennis  growing,  the  author  must  have  room  to  display 
various  scenes,  various  groups  of  characters,  various  crit- 
ical situations — the  ununified  events  of  years  through 
which  the  hero,  struggling,  attains  the  full  stature  of  his 
many-sided  manhood.  The  short  story  writer,  by  virtue 
of  the  relatively  simple  unity  of  effect  which  he  seeks,  must 
ordinarily  confine  himself  to  showing  the  reaction  of  a 
formed  and  single-minded  character  to  a  single  set  of  cir- 
cumstances; and  with  such  a  character,  so  presented,  we 
can  never  get  on  really  intimate  terms — we  can  never  love 
him  as  we  love  Richard  Feverel,  we  can  never  hate  him  as 
we  hate  Uriah  Heep.  When  plot  is  clearly  the  chief  interest, 
the  superiority  of  the  novel  is  not  quite  so  obvious.  No  one 
feels  that  the  short  story  inadequately  exhibits  the  prob- 
lems and  solutions  of  Dupin  or  Sherlock  Holmes.  No  one 
can  wish  that  "The  Pit  and  the  Pendulum"  were  longer. 
When  the  novel  is  of  an  epic  or  episodic  structure,  a  skill 
in  plotting  may  suffice  which  is  quite  inferior  to  that  mani- 
fested in  the  masterly  design  of  "The  Gold-Bug."  But 
take  a  novel  of  the  dramatic  type,  say  Thomas  Hardy's 
Return  of  the  Native,  and  compare  it  with  his  own  dra- 
matic short  story,  "The  Three  Strangers":  in  the  one,  the 
mere  plotting  is  a  piece  of  ingenuity;  in  the  other  it  is  a 
work  of  genius.  The  same  illustrations  will  serve  to  sug- 
gest the  comparatively  restricted  capacity  of  the  short 
story  for  conveying  the  "atmosphere"  of  a  locality  and  the 


xxx  Introduction 

aspect  of  the  scene:  "The  Three  Strangers"  presents, 
vividly  enough,  the  interior  of  one  room  in  one  lonely 
grange  on  one  rainy  night;  The  Return  of  the  Native  pre- 
sents the  diurnal  life  at  three  or  four  such  focal  points  re- 
solved into  the  larger  unity  of  Egdon  Heath,  which  we 
have  watched  withering  through  the  sultry  summer,  under 
storm  and  star  and  solemn  sunset.  All  things  considered, 
a  fine  dramatic  short  story  bears  about  the  same  relation  of 
value  to  a  fine  dramatic  novel  that  the  spirited  first  scene 
of  Romeo  and  Juliet  bears  to  the  five  act  symphony  of 
King  Lear.1 

To  compare  the  value  of  one  short  story  with  that  of 
another  short  story  is  an  altogether  different  matter.  Poe, 
in  commenting — without  excessive  modesty — upon  his 
own  tales,  suggests  two  points  of  comparison  which  our 
study  has  prepared  us  to  use.  "You  would  be  surprised," 
he  says,  "to  hear  me  say  that  (omitting  one  or  two  of  my 
first  efforts)  I  do  not  consider  any  one  of  my  stories  belter 
than  another.  There  is  a  great  variety  of  kinds  and,  in 
degree  of  value,  these  kinds  vary — but  each  tale  is  equally 
good  of  its  kind.  The  loftiest  kind  is  that  of  the  highest 
imagination — and  for  this  reason  only,  "Ligeia"  may  be 
called  my  best  tale."  '  When  Poe  says  that  he  does  not 
consider  any  one  of  his  stories  "better  than  another."  he 
can  only  mean  that  they  all  conform  to  the  general  stand- 
ard for  the  short  story  which  we  discussed  in  our  first 
section.  Let  us  then,  in  the  case  of  any  pair  of  tales,  take 
that  standard  as  the  first  point  of  comparison,  and  inquire 
whether  they  both  have  that  unity  of  effect,  that  freedom 
from  excrescence,  that  firmly  knit  plot,  that  originality, 
and  that  brevity,  which  are  characteristic  of  the  genus. 

1  It  would  be  more  accurate  to  compare  a  fine  one-act  drama  with 
a  fine  drama  in  five  acts  by  the  same  author;  the  reader  may  supply 
the  modern  instance. 

2  Prescott's  Selections,  p.  322. 


Critical  Considerations  xxxi 

Having  formed  our  opinion  upon  their  general  technical 
qualities,  we  may  proceed,  perhaps  with  more  difficulty, 
to  the  second  point  of  comparison,  and  inquire  to  which 
of  the  "kinds"  or  species  discussed  in  our  second  section 
they  belong.  If  they  belong  to  different  species, — if,  for 
example,  one  is  a  plot-story  like  "The  Gold-Bug"  and  the 
other  a  character-story  like  "Will  o'  the  Mill" — we  may 
raise,  and  possibly  settle,  the  question:  Which  is  the  higher 
species?  If  they  belong  to  the  same  species, — for  example, 
a  detective  story  of  Poe's  and  one  of  Sir  Arthur  Conan 
Doyle's, — which  is  the  more  impressive  specimen  of  its 
kind?  If  the  stories  we  have  chosen  seem  to  belong  clearly 
to  no  one  of  our  three  main  classes,  they  may  profitably 
be  compared  with  reference  to  each  class  in  turn:  we  may 
inquire,  in  other  words,  which  is  the  more  impressive  with 
respect  to  its  characters,  which  with  respect  to  its  plot, 
which  with  respect  to  its  atmosphere  and  setting. 

After  one  has  practised  these  methods  of  comparison  for 
some  time,  one  is  fairly  certain  to  conclude  that  some  short 
stories  of  perhaps  equal  technical  merit  are  of  very  unequal 
merit  on  other  grounds.  Let  us  take  a  case  of  quite  glaring 
inequality:  "The  Signal-Man"  and  "The  Man  Who  Was." 
Both  are  brief,  original,  firmly  knit,  free  from  excrescence, 
and  of  intense  unity  of  effect.  But  the  characters  of  "  The 
Signal-Man"  are  essentially  insignificant:  a  colorless  nar- 
rator and  a  railway  man  distinguished  only  by  a  nervous 
hallucination.  The  characters  of  "The  Man  Who  Was" 
are  significant  and  brilliantly  indicated  representatives  of 
the  British,  the  Indian,  and  the  Russian  empires.  The 
plot  of  "The  Signal-Man"  is  a  web  of  such  incidents  as 
afford  recreation  to  societies  for  psychical  research.  The 
plot  of  "The  Man  Who  Was"  is  involved  with  a  question 
of  the  difference  between  Eastern  and  Western  civilization, 
with  a  crisis  in  the  relations  of  Russia  and  England,  with 


xxxii  Introduction 

the  memories  of  a  great  European  war.  The  setting  of 
"The  Signal-Man"  is  a  railway  cut  and  a  signal  station — 
any  station  and  any  cut  would  have  served  as  well.  The 
setting  of  "The  Man  Who  Was"  is  the  mess-room  of  the 
White  Hussars,  reeking  with  "local  color,"  from  which 
the  imagination  is  sent  across  the  Punjab,  through  the 
Khybar  Pass,  and  the  mountains  of  Afghanistan,  towards 
the  northernmost  limits  of  the  Siberian  wilderness.  Such 
a  comparison  should  leave  no  doubt  as  to  which  of  the 
tales  is  the  more  valuable  contribution  to  literature.  It 
suggests  that  we  may  well  add  to  our  standards  of  criti- 
cism for  the  short  story  a  standard  which  Aristotle  set  up 
for  the  criticism  of  tragedy,  when  he  said  that  the  fable 
must  be  "of  a  certain  magnitude."  In  every  short  story 
that  is  permanently  and  deeply  impressive  we  shall  find 
that  the  author — whether  by  a  suggestion  of  geographical 
breadth  in  his  setting,  or  by  historical  or  legendary  depth 
in  his  plot,  or  by  moral,  social,  or  other  significance  in  his 
characters,  or  by  all  combined — has  given  to  his  final 
effect  a  certain  spatial,  or  temporal  or  ideal  magnitude.  To 
construct  a  short  story  "large"  in  all  three  dimensions  is 
an  extremely  difficult  and  rare  achievement. 


DESCRIPTIVE  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

An  historical  survey  of  all  the  varieties  of  brief  fictitious 
narrative  written  in  English  may  be  found  in  Henry  Seidel 
Canby's  The  Short  Story  in  English,  published  by  Henry 
Holt  &  Company,  New  York,  1909.  A  Study  of  the  Short 
Story,  by  the  same  author  and  publisher,  1913,  is  a  revised 
abridgment  of  the  earlier  work,  with  the  addition  of  illus- 
trative specimens.  A  special  study  in  the  influence  of 
locality  upon  the  development  of  the  short  story  in  Amer- 
ica is  Elias  Lieberman's  The  American  Short  Story,  pub- 
lished by  The  Editor:  Ridgewood,  New  Jersey,  1912.  See 
also  the  introduction  to  Charles  Sears  Baldwin's  American 
Short  Stories,  published  by  Longmans,  Green,  and  Co.  A 
sketch  of  the  development  of  the  short  story  with  reference 
to  French,  Italian,  Spanish,  German,  Russian,  and  Scan- 
dinavian, as  well  as  English,  writers  appears  as  the  in- 
troduction to  a  collection  of  stories  from  various  lands, 
The  Short-Story,  made  by  Brander  Matthews,  and  pub- 
lished by  the  American  Book  Company,  New  York.  Most 
of  the  authors  represented  in  our  collection  are  treated 
more  or  less  fully  in  The  Development  of  the  English  Novel, 
by  Wilbur  L.  Cross.  (New  York:  The  Macmillan  Co., 
1900),  where  they  may  profitably  be  viewed  in  relation  to 
the  main  stream  of  fiction. 

Most  of  the  recent  books  on  the  short  story  were  in- 
tended primarily  to  serve  as  practical  manuals  for  the 
writer.  This  purpose,  however,  does  not  render  them  less 
useful  to  the  student  who  desires  merely  to  understand  the 
nature  and  appreciate  the  merits  of  the  form.  Indeed,  the 
surest  way  to  a  recognition  of  the  art  in  "  Rip  Van  Winkle  " 

xxxiii 


xxxiv  Descriptive  Bibliography 

or  " Phoebe"  is  to  study  two  or  three  of  the  books  in  the 
following  list,  to  write  a  short  story,  and  then  to  compare 
it  with  the  work  of  0.  Henry  or  Irving: 

1.  Albright,  Evelyn  May,  The  Short  Story — Its  Principles  and 
Structure.    New  York:  The  Macmillan  Company. 

2.  Barrett,  Charles  Raymond,  Short  Story  Writing:  A  Practical 
Treatise  on  the  Art  of  the  Short  Story.    New  York:  The  Baker  and 
Taylor  Company,  1900.    (One  of  the  earliest  of  the  practical  man- 
uals.) 

3.  Esenwein,  J.  Berg,  Writing  the  Short  Story:  A  Practical  Handbook 
on  the  Rise,  Structure,  Writing,  and  Sale  of  the  Modern  Short  Story. 
New  York:  Hinds,  Noble  &  Eldredge,  1909.    (This  book  contains  a 
useful  bibliography,  including  a  considerable  list  of  magazine  articles 
on  the  short  story.) 

4.  Grabo,  Carl  H.,  The  Art  of  the  Short  Story.    New  York:  Charles 
Scribner's  Sons,  1914.    (Interesting  in  its  attempt  to  throw  light  upon 
the  psychology  of  composition.) 

5.  Hamilton,  Clayton,  The  Materials  and  Methods  of  Fiction.    New 
York:  The  Baker  and  Taylor  Company,  1908. 

6.  Hart,  W.  M.,  Hawthorne  and  the  Short  Story.    Berkeley,  Cali- 
fornia, 1900. 

7.  Matthews,  Brander,  The  Philosophy  of  the  Short  Story.    New 
York:  Longmans,  Green,  and  Company,  1901.    ("  So  far  as  the  author 
is  aware,  he  had  no  predecessor  in  asserting  that  the  Short-story 
differs  from  the  novel  essentially, — and  not  merely  in  the  matter  of 
length.    So  far  as  he  knows,  it  was  in  the  present  paper  the  suggestion 
was  first  made  that  the  Short-story  is  in  reality  a  genre,  a  separate 
kind,  a  genus  by  itself.") 

8.  Perry,  Bliss,  A  Study  of  Prose  Fiction.     Boston:  Houghton 
Mifflin  Company,  1902.    (A  very  clear  and  sound  discussion  of  the 
elements  of  fiction.    The  short  story  is  treated  in  Chapter  XII.) 

9.  Pitkin,  Walter  B.,  The  Art  and  the  Business  of  Story  Writing. 
New  York:  The  Macmillan  Company,  1912.    ("An  outgrowth  of  the 
belief  that  fiction  has  a  technique  no  less  definite,  though  much  less 
rigid,  than  the  technique  of  perspective  drawing  or  of  harmony  and 
counterpoint  in  music.") 

10.  Prescott,  F.  C.  (editor),  Selections  from  the  Critical  Writings  of 
Edgar  Allan  Poe.    New  York:  Henry  Holt  and  Company,  1909.    (A 
convenient  collection  of  Poe's  most  significant  critical  work,  with  an 
extended  introductory  discussion  of  his  theories.) 

11.  Wells,  Carolyn,  The  Technique  of  the  Mystery  Story.    Spring- 
field, Mass:  The  Home  Correspondence  School,  1913.     (Somewhat 
diffuse,  but  rich  in  illustrative  matter.) 


A  BOOK  OF  SHORT  STORIES 


RIP  VAN  WINKLE 

By  WASHINGTON  IRVING 

A  POSTHUMOUS  WRITING  OF  DIEDRICH  KNICKERBOCKER 

By  Woden,  God  of  Saxons, 

From  whence  comes  Wensday,  that  is  Wodensday, 

Truth  is  a  thing  that  ever  I  will  keep 

Unto  thylke  day  in  which  I  creep  into 

My  sepulcher — -  Cartwright 

[The  following  tale  was  found  among  the  papers  of  the  late 
Diedrich  Knickerbocker,  an  old  gentleman  of  New  York,  who 
was  very  carious  in  the  Dutch  history  of  the  province,  and  the 
manners  of  the  descendants  from  its  primitive  settlers.  His 
historical  researches,  however,  did  not  lie  so  much  among  books  5 
as  among  men;  for  the  former  are  lamentably  scanty  on  his 
favorite  topics;  whereas  he  found  the  old  burghers,  and  still 
more  their  wives,  rich  in  that  legendary  lore  so  invaluable  to 
true  history.  Whenever,  therefore,  he  happened  upon  a  gen- 
uine Dutch  family,  snugly  shut  up  in  its  low-roofed  farmhouse,  10 
under  a  spreading  sycamore,  he  looked  upon  it  as  a  little  clasped 
volume  of  black-letter,  and  studied  it  with  the  zeal  of  a  book- 
worm. 

The  result  of  all  these  researches  was  a  history  of  the  province 
during  the  reign  of  the  Dutch  governors,  which  he  published  15 
some  years  since.    There  have  been  various  opinions  as  to  the 
literary  character  of  his  work,  and,  to  tell  the  truth,  it  is  not  a 
whit  better  than  it  should  be.    Its  chief  merit  is  its  scrupulous 
accuracy,  which  indeed  was  a  little  questioned  on  its  first  ap- 
pearance, but  has  since  been  completely  established;  and  it  is  20 
now  admitted  into  all  historical  collections  as  a  book  of  unques- 
tionable authority. 

The  old  gentleman  died  shortly  after  the  publication  of  his 
work;  and  now  that  he  is  dead  and  gone,  it  cannot  do  much 

3 


4  Washington  Irving 

harm  to  his  memory  to  3ay  that  his  time  might  have  been  much 
better  employed  in  weightier  labors.  He,  however,  was  apt  to 
ride  his  hobby  in  his  own  way;  and  though  it  did  now  and  then 
kick  up  the  dust  a  little  in  the  eyes  of  his  neighbors,  and  grieve 
5  the  spirit  of  some  friends,  for  whom  he  felt  the  truest  deference 
and  affection,  yet  his  errors  and  follies  are  remembered  "more 
in  sorrow  than  in  anger,"  and  it  begins  to  be  suspected  that 
he  never  intended  to  injure  or  offend.  But  however  his  memory 
may  be  appreciated  by  critics,  it  js  still  held  dear  by  many  folk 
10  whose  good  opinion  is  well  worth  having;  particularly  by  cer- 
tain biscuit-bakers,  who  have  gone  so  far  as  to  imprint  his  like- 
ness on  their  New  Year  cakes;  and  have  thus  given  him  a  chance 
for  immortality,  almost  equal  to  the  being  stamped  on  a  Water- 
loo medal,  or  a  Queen  Anne's  farthing.] 

15  WHOEVER  has  made  a  voyage  up  the  Hudson  must  re- 
member the  Kaatskill  mountains.  They  are  a  dismem- 
bered branch  of  the  great  Appalachian  family,  and  are 
seen  away  to  the  west  of  the  river,  swelling  up  to  a  noble 
height,  and  lording  it  over  the  surrounding  country. 

20  Every  change  of  season,  every  change  of  weather,  indeed, 
every  hour  of  the  day,  produces  some  change  in  the  magical 
hues  and  shapes  of  these  mountains,  and  they  are  regarded 
by  all  the  good  wives,  far  and  near,  as  perfect  barometers. 
When  the  weather  is  fair  and  settled,  they  are  clothed  in 

25  blue  and  purple,  and  print  their  bold  outlines  on  the  clear 
evening  sky;  but  sometimes,  when  the  rest  of  the  landscape 
is  cloudless,  they  will  gather  a  hood  of  gray  vapors  about 
their  summits,  which,  in  the  last  rays  of  the  setting  sun, 
will  glow  and  light  up  like  a  crown  of  glory. 

30  At  the  foot  of  these  fairy  mountains,  the  voyager  may 
have  descried  the  light  smoke  curling  up  from  a  village, 
whose  shingle-roofs  gleam  among  the  trees,  just  where  the 
blue  tints  of  the  upland  melt  away  into  the  fresh  green 
of  the  nearer  landscape.  It  is  a  little  village,  of  great 


Rip  Van  Winkle  5 

antiquity,  having  been  founded  by  some  of  the  Dutch 
colonists  in  the  early  times  of  the  province,  just  about 
the  beginning  of  the  government  of  the  good  Peter  Stuy- 
vesant  (may  he  rest  in  peace!),  and  there  were  some  of 
the  houses  of  the  original  settlers  standing  within  a  few  5 
years,  built  of  small  yellow  bricks  brought  from  Holland, 
having  latticed  windows  and  gable  fronts,  surmounted 
with  weathercocks. 

In  that  same  village,  and  in  one  of  these  very  houses 
(which,  to  tell  the  precise  truth,  was  sadly  time-worn  and  10 
weather-beaten),  there  lived,  many  years  since,  while  the 
country  was  yet  a  province  of  Great  Britain,  a  simple, 
good-natured  fellow,  of  the  name  of  Rip  Van  Winkle. 
He  was  a  descendant  of  the  Van  Winkles  who  figured  so 
gallantly  in  the  chivalrous  days  of  Peter  Stuyvesant,  and  15 
accompanied  him  to  the  siege  of  Fort  Christina.  He  in- 
herited, however,  but  little  of  the  martial  character  of  his 
ancestors.  I  have  observed  that  he  was  a  simple,  good- 
natured  man;  he  was,  moreover,  a  kind  neighbor,  and  an 
obedient,  hen-pecked  husband.  Indeed,  to  the  latter  cir-  20 
cumstance  might  be  owing  that  meekness  of  spirit  which 
gained  him  such  universal  popularity;  for  those  men  are 
most  apt  to  be  obsequious  and  conciliating  abroad  who  are 
under  the  discipline  of  shrews  at  home.  Their  tempers, 
doubtless,  are  rendered  pliant  and  malleable  in  the  fiery  25 
furnace  of  domestic  tribulation;  and  a  curtain-lecture  is 
worth  all  the  sermons  in  the  world  for  teaching  the  virtues 
of  patience  and  long-suffering.  A  termagant  wife  may, 
therefore,  in  some  respects,  be  considered  a  tolerable 
blessing;  and,  if  so,  Rip  Van  Winkle  was  thrice  blessed.  30 

Certain  it  is,  that  he  was  a  great  favorite  among  all  the 
good  wives  of  the  village,  who,  as  usual  with  the  amiable 
sex,  took  his  part  in  all  family  squabbles;  and  never  failed, 
whenever  they  talked  those  matters  over  in  their  evening 


6  Washington  Irving 

gossipings,  to  lay  all  the  blame  on  Dame  Van  Winkle. 
The  children  of  the  village,  too,  would  shout  with  joy 
whenever  he  approached.  He  assisted  at  their  sports, 
made  their  playthings,  taught  them  to  fly  kites  and  shoot 

5  marbles,  and  told  them  long  stories  of  ghosts,  witches, 
and  Indians.  Whenever  he  went  dodging  about  the  vil- 
lage he  was  surrounded  by  a  troop  of  them,  hanging  on 
his  skirts,  clambering  on  his  back,  and  playing  a  thousand 
tricks  on  him  with  impunity;  and  not  a  dog  would  bark 

10  at  him  throughout  the  neighborhood. 

The  great  error  in  Rip's  composition  was  an  insuperable 
aversion  to  all  kinds  of  profitable  labor.  It  could  not  be 
from  the  want  of  assiduity  or  perseverance,  for  he  would 
sit  on  a  wet  rock,  with  a  rod  as  long  and  heavy  as  a  Tar- 

15  tar's  lance,  and  fish  all  day  without  a  murmur,  even 
though  he  should  not  be  encouraged  by  a  single  nibble.  He 
would  carry  a  fowling-piece  on  his  shoulder  for  hours 
together,  trudging  through  woods  and  swamps,  and  up 
hill  and  down  dale,  to  shoot  a  few  squirrels  or  wild  pigeons. 

20  He  would  never  refuse  to  assist  a  neighbor  even  in  the 
roughest  toil,  and  was  a  foremost  man  at  all  country  frolics 
for  husking  Indian  corn  or  building  stone  fences;  the 
women  of  the  village,  too,  used  to  employ  him  to  run  their 
errands,  and  to  do  such  little  odd  jobs  as  their  less  obliging 

25  husbands  would  not  do  for  them.  In  a  word,  Rip  was 
ready  to  attend  to  anybody's  business  but  his  own;  but 
as  to  doing  family  duty,  and  keeping  his  farm  in  order, 
he  found  it  impossible. 

In  fact,  he  declared  it  was  of  no  use  to  work  on  his  farm ; 

30  it  was  the  most  pestilent  little  piece  of  ground  in  the  whole 
country;  everything  about  it  went  wrong,  and  would  go 
wrong,  in  spite  of  him.  His  fences  were  continually  falling 
to  pieces;  his  cow  would  either  go  astray,  or  get  among  the 
cabbages;  weeds  were  sure  to  grow  quicker  in  his  fields 


Rip  Van  Winkle  7 

than  anywhere  else;  the  rain  always  made  a  point  of 
setting  in  just  as  he  had  some  out-of-door  work  to  do;  so 
that  though  his  patrimonial  estate  had  dwindled  away 
under  his  management,  acre  by  acre,  until  there  was  little 
more  left  than  a  mere  patch  of  Indian  corn  and  potatoes,  5 
yet  it  was  the  worst  conditioned  farm  in  the  neighborhood. 

His  children,  too,  were  as  ragged  and  wild  as  if  they 
belonged  to  nobody.  His  son  Rip,  an  urchin  begotten  in 
his  own  likeness,  promised  to  inherit  the  habits,  with  the 
old  clothes,  of  his  father.  He  was  generally  seen  trooping  10 
like  a  colt  at  his  mother's  heels,  equipped  in  a  pair  of  his 
father's  cast-off  galligaskins,  which  he  had  much  ado  to 
hold  up  with  one  hand,  as  a  fine  lady  does  her  train  in  bad 
weather. 

Rip  Van  Winkle,  however,  was  one  of  those  happy  15 
mortals,  of  foolish,  well-oiled  dispositions,  who  take  the 
world  easy,  eat  white  bread  or  brown,  whichever  can  be 
got  with  least  thought  or  trouble,  and  would  rather  starve 
on  a  penny  than  work  for  a  pound.    If  left  to  himself,  he 
would  have  whistled  life  away  in  perfect  contentment;  20 
but  his  wife  kept  continually  dinning  in  his  ears  about  his 
idleness,  his  carelessness  and  the  ruin  he  was  bringing  on 
his  family.    Morning,  noon  and  night,  her  tqngue  was  in- 
cessantly going,  and  everything  he  said  or  did  was  sure  to 
produce  a  torrent  of  household  eloquence.    Rip  had  but  25 
one  way  of  replying  to  all  lectures  of  the  kind,  and  that, 
by  frequent  use,  had  grown  into  a  habit.    He  shrugged  his 
shoulders,  shook  his  head,  cast  up  his  eyes,  but  said  noth- 
ing.   This,  however,  always  provoked  a  fresh  volley  from 
his  wife;  so  that  he  was  fain  to  draw  off  his  forces,  and  take  30 
to  the  outside  of  the  house — the  one  side  which,  in  truth, 
belongs  to  a  hen-pecked  husband. 

Rip's  sole  domestic  adherent  was  his  dog  Wolf,  who  was 
as  much  hen-pecked  as  his  master;  for  Dame  Van  Winkle 


8  Washington  Irving 

regarded  them  as  companions  in  idleness,  and  even  looked 
upon  Wolf  with  an  evil  eye,  as  the  cause  of  his  master's 
going  so  often  astray.  True  it  is,  in  all  points  of  spirit 
befitting  an  honorable  dog,  he  was  as  courageous  an  animal 
5  as  ever  scoured  the  woods;  but  what  courage  can  withstand 
the  ever-during  and  all-besetting  terrors  of  a  woman's 
tongue?  The  moment  Wolf  entered  the  house  his  crest 
fell,  his  tail  drooped  to  the  ground,  or  curled  between  his 
legs,  he  sneaked  about  with  a  gallows  air,  casting  many  a 

10  sidelong  glance  at  Dame  Van  Winkle,  and  at  the  least 
flourish  of  a  broomstick  or  ladle  he  would  fly  to  the  door 
with  yelping  precipitation. 

Times  grew  worse  and  worse  with  Rip  Van  Winkle  as 
years  of  matrimony  rolled  on;  a  tart  temper  never  mellows 

15  with  age,  and  a  sharp  tongue  is  the  only  edged  tool  that 
grows  keener  with  constant  use.  For  a  long  while  he  used 
to  console  himself,  when  driven  from  home,  by  frequenting 
a  kind  of  perpetual  club  of  the  sages,  philosophers,  and 
other  idle  personages  of  the  village,  which  held  its  sessions 

20  on  a  bench  before  a  small  inn,  designated  by  a  rubicund 
portrait  of  His  Majesty,  George  the  Third.  Here  they 
used  to  sit  in  the  shade  through  a  long,  lazy  summer's 
day,  talking  listlessly  over  village  gossip,  or  telling  endless 
sleepy  stories  about  nothing.  But  it  would  have  been 

25  worth  any  statesman's  money  to  have  heard  the  profound 
discussions  that  sometimes  took  place,  when  by  chance 
an  old  newspaper  fell  into  their  hands  from  some  passing 
traveler.  How  solemnly  they  would  listen  to  the  contents, 
as  drawled  out  by  Derrick  Van  Bummel,  the  schoolmaster, 

30  a  dapper,  learned  little  man,  who  was  not  to  be  daunted  by 

the  most  gigantic  word  in  the  dictionary;  and  how  sagely 

they  would  deliberate  upon  public  events  some  months 

after  they  had  taken  place. 

The  opinions  of  this  junta  were  completely  controlled 


Rip  Van  Winkle  9 

by  Nicholas  Vedder,  a  patriarch  of  the  village,  and  land- 
lord of  the  inn,  at  the  door  of  which  he  took  his  seat  from 
morning  till  night,  just  moving  sufficiently  to  avoid  the 
sun  and  keep  in  the  shade  of  a  large  tree;  so  that  the  neigh- 
bors could  tell  the  hour  by  his  movements  as  accurately  5 
as  by  a  sun-dial.  It  is  true  he  was  rarely  heard  to  speak, 
but  smoked  his  pipe  incessantly.  His  adherents,  however 
(for  every  great  man  has  his  adherents),  perfectly  under- 
stood him,  and  knew  how  to  gather  his  opinions.  When 
anything  that  was  read  or  related  displeased  him,  he  was  10 
observed  to  smoke  his  pipe  vehemently,  and  to  send  forth 
short,  frequent,  and  angry  puffs;  but  when  pleased,  he 
would  inhale  the  smoke  slowly  and  tranquilly,  and  emit 
it  in  light  and  placid  clouds;  and  sometimes,  taking  the 
pipe  from  his  mouth,  and  letting  the  fragrant  vapor  curl  15 
about  his  nose,  would  gravely  nod  his  head  in  token  of 
perfect  approbation. 

From  even  this  stronghold  the  unlucky  Rip  was  at 
length  routed  by  his  termagant  wife,  who  would  suddenly 
break  in  upon  the  tranquillity  of  the  assemblage  and  call  20 
the  members  all  to  naught;  nor  was  that  august  personage, 
Nicholas  Vedder  himself,  sacred  from  the  daring  tongue 
of  this  terrible  virago,  who  charged  him  outright  with 
encouraging  her  husband  in  habits  of  idleness. 

Poor  Rip  was  at  last  reduced  almost  to  despair;  and  his  25 
only  alternative,  to  escape  from  the  labor  of  the  farm 
and  clamor  of  his  wife,  was  to  take  gun  in  hand  and  stroll 
away  into  the  woods.    Here  he  would  sometimes  seat  him- 
self at  the  foot  of  a  tree,  and  share  the  contents  of  his 
wallet  with  Wolf,  with  whom  he  sympathized  as  a  fellow  30 
sufferer  in  persecution.    "Poor  Wolf,"  he  would  say,  "thy 
mistress  leads  thee  a  dog's  life  of  it;  but  never  mind,  my 
lad,  whilst  I  live  thou  shalt  never  want  a  friend  to  stand 
by  thee!"    Wolf  would  wag  his  tail,  look  wistfully  in  his 


io  Washington  Irving 

master's  face;  and  if  dogs  can  feel  pity,  I  verily  believe 
he  reciprocated  the  sentiment  with  all  his  heart. 

In  a  long  ramble  of  the  kind  on  a  fine  autumnal  day, 
Rip  had  unconsciously  scrambled  to  one  of  the  highest 
5  parts  of  the  Kaatskill  mountains.  He  was  after  his  favor- 
ite sport  of  squirrel  shooting,  and  the  still  solitudes  had 
echoed  and  re-echoed  with  the  reports  of  his  gun.  Panting 
and  fatigued,  he  threw  himself,  late  in  the  afternoon,  on  a 
green  knoll,  covered  with  mountain  herbage,  that  crowned 

io  the  brow  of  a  precipice.  From  an  opening  between  the 
trees  he  could  overlook  all  the  lower  country  for  many  a 
mile  of  rich  woodland.  He  saw  at  a  distance  the  lordy 
Hudson,  far,  far  below  him,  moving  on  his  silent  but  ma- 
jestic course,  with  the  reflection  of  a  purple  cloud,  or  the 

15  sail  of  a  lagging  bark,  here  and  there  sleeping  on  its  glassy 
bottom,  and  at  last  losing  itself  in  the  blue  highlands. 

On  the  other  side  he  looked  down  into  a  deep  mountain 
glen,  wild,  lonely,  and  shagged,  the  bottom  filled  with 
fragments  from  the  impending  cliffs,  and  scarcely  lighted 

20  by  the  reflected  rays  of  the  setting  sun.  For  some  time 
Rip  lay  musing  on  this  scene;  evening  was  gradually  ad- 
vancing; the  mountains  began  to  throw  their  long,  blue 
shadows  over  the  valleys;  he  saw  that  it  would  be  dark 
long  before  he  could  reach  the  village,  and  he  heaved  a 

25  heavy  sigh  when  he  thought  of  encountering  the  terrors 
of  Dame  Van  Winkle. 

As  he  was  about  to  descend,  he  heard  a  voice  from  a  dis- 
tance, hallooing,  "  Rip  Van  Winkle,  Rip  Van  Winkle ! "  He 
looked  round,  but  could  see  nothing  but  a  crow  winging  its 

30  solitary  flight  acros^  the  mountain.  He  thought  his  fancy 
must  have  deceived  him,  and  turned  again  to  descend, 
when  he  heard  the  same  cry  ring  through  the  still  evening 
air:  "Rip  Van  Winkle!  Rip  Van  Winkle!"— at  the  same 
time  Wolf  bristled  up  his  back,  and  giving  a  low  growl, 


Rip  Van  Winkle  II 

skulked  to  his  master's  side,  looking  fearfully  down  into 
the  glen.  Rip  now  felt  a  vague  apprehension  stealing  over 
him;  he  looked  anxiously  in  the  same  direction,  and  per- 
ceived a  strange  figure  slowly  toiling  up  the  rocks,  and 
bending  under  the  weight  of  something  he  carried  on  his  5 
back.  He  was  surprised  to  see  any  human  being  in  this 
lonely  and  unfrequented  place;  but  supposing  it  to  be  some 
one  of  the  neighborhood  in  need  of  his  assistance,  he  has- 
tened down  to  yield  it. 

On  nearer  approach  he  was  still  more  surprised  at  the  10 
singularity  of  the  stranger's  appearance.    He  was  a  short, 
square-built  old  fellow,  with  thick  bushy  hair,  and  a  griz- 
zled beard.    His  dress  was  of  the  antique  Dutch  fashion — 
a  cloth  jerkin  strapped  round  the  waist — several  pair  of 
breeches,  the  outer  one  of  ample  volume,  decorated  with  15 
rows  of  buttons  down  the  sides,  and  bunches  at  the  knees. 
He  bore  on  his  shoulder  a  stout  keg  that  seemed  full  of 
liquor,  and  made  signs  for  Rip  to  approach  and  assist  him 
with  the  load.    Though  rather  shy  and  distrustful  of  this 
new  acquaintance,  Rip  complied  with  his  usual  alacrity;  20 
and  mutually  relieving  one  another,  they  clambered  up  a 
narrow  gully,  apparently  the  dry  bed  of  a  mountain  tor- 
rent.   As  they  ascended,  Rip  every  now  and  then  heard 
long,  rolling  peals,  like  distant  thunder,  that  seemed  to 
issue  out  of  a  deep  ravine,  or  rather  cleft,,  between  lofty  25 
rocks,  toward  which  their  rugged  path  conducted.     He 
paused  for  an  instant,  but  supposing  it  to.be  the  muttering 
of  one  of  those  transient  thunder  showers  which  often  take 
place  in  mountain  heights,  he  proceeded.    Passing  through 
the  ravine,  they  came  to  a  hollow,  Ijke  a  small  amphi-  30 
theater,  surrounded  by  perpendicular  precipices,  over  the 
brinks  of  which  impending  trees  shot  their  branches,  so 
that  you  only  caught  glimpses  of  the  azure  sky  and  the 
bright  evening  cloud.    During  the  whole  time  Rip  and  his 


12  Washington  Irving 

companion  had  labored  on  in  silence;  for  though  the  former 
marveled  greatly  what  could  be  the  object  of  carrying  a 
keg  of  liquor  up  this  wild  mountain,  yet  there  was  some- 
thing strange  and  incomprehensible  about  the  unknown, 
5  that  inspired  awe  and  checked  familiarity. 

On  entering  the  amphitheater,  new  objects  of  wonder 
presented  themselves.  On  a  level  spot  in  the  center  was 
a  company  of  odd-looking  personages  playing  at  ninepins. 
They  were  dressed  in  a  quaint,  outlandish  fashion;  some 

10  wore  short  doublets,  others  jerkins,  with  long  knives  in 
their  belts,  and  most  of  them  had  enormous  breeches  of 
similar  style  with  that  of  the  guide's.  Their  visages,  too, 
were  peculiar:  one  had  a  large  beard,  broad  face,  and  small, 
piggish  eyes;  the  face  of  another  seemed  to  consist  entirely 

15  of  nose,  and  was  surmounted  by  a  white  sugar-loaf  hat, 
set  off  with  a  little  red  cock's  tail.  They  all  had  beards  of 
various  shapes  and  colors.  There  was  one  who  seemed  to 
be  the  commander.  He  was  a  stout  old  gentleman,  with  a 
weather-beaten  countenance;  he  wore  a  laced  doublet, 

20  broad  belt  and  hanger,  high  crowned  hat  and  feather,  red 
stockings,  and  high-heeled  shoes,  with  roses  in  them.  The 
whole  group  reminded  Rip  of  the  figures  in  an  old  Flemish 
painting,  in  the  parlor  of  Dominie  Van  Shaick,  the  village 
parson,  and  which  had  been  brought  over  from  Holland 

25  at  the  time  of  the  settlement. 

What  seemed  particularly  odd  to  Rip  was,  that,  though 
these  folks  were  evidently  amusing  themselves,  yet  they 
maintained  the  gravest  faces,  the  most  mysterious  silence, 
and  were,  withal,  the  most  melancholy  party  of  pleasure  he 

30  had  ever  witnessed.    Nothing  interrupted  the  stillness  of 

the  scene  but  the  noise  of  the  balls,  which,  whenever  they 

were  rolled,  echoed  along  the  mountains  like  rumbling 

peals  of  thunder. 

As  Rip  and  his  companion  approached  them,  they  sud- 


Rip  Van  Winkle  13 

denly  desisted  from  their  play,  and  stared  at  him  with  such 
fixed,  statue-like  gaze,  and  such  strange,  uncouth,  lack- 
luster countenances,  that  his  heart  turned  within  him,  and 
his  knees  smote  together.  His  companion  now  emptied  the 
contents  of  the  keg  into  large  flagons,  and  made  signs  to  5 
him  to  wait  upon  the  company.  He  obeyed  with  fear  and 
trembling;  they  quaffed  the  liquor  in  profound  silence,  and 
then  returned  to  their  game. 

By  degrees  Rip's  awe  and  apprehension  subsided.    He 
even  ventured,  when  no  eye  was  fixed  upon  him,  to  taste  10 
the  beverage,  which  he  found  had  much  of  the  flavor  of 
excellent  Hollands.    He  was  naturally  a  thirsty  soul,  and 
was  soon  tempted  to  repeat  the  draught.    One  taste  pro- 
voked another;  and  he  reiterated  his  visits  to  the  flagon  so 
often  that  at  length  his  senses  were  overpowered,  his  eyes  15 
swam  in  his  head,  his  head  gradually  declined,  and  he  fell 
into  a  deep  sleep. 

On  waking,  he  found  himself  on  the  green  knoll  whence 
he  had  first  seen  the  old  man  of  the  glen.  He  rubbed  his 
eyes — it  was  a  bright,  sunny  morning.  The  birds  were  20 
hopping  and  twittering  among  the  bushes,  and  the  eagle 
was  wheeling  aloft,  and  breasting  the  pure  mountain 
breeze.  "Surely,"  thought  Rip,  "I  have  not  slept  here  all 
night."  He  recalled  the  occurrences  before  he  fell  asleep. 
The  strange  man  with  a  keg  of  liquor — the  mountain  25 
ravine — the  wild  retreat  among  the  rocks — the  woe-begone 
party  at  ninepins — the  flagon — "Oh!  that  flagon!  that 
wicked  flagon!"  thought  Rip — "what  excuse  shall  I  make 
to  Dame  Van  Winkle?" 

He  looked  round  for  his  gun,  but  in  place  of  the  clean,  30 
well-oiled  fowling-piece,  he  found  an  old  firelock  lying  by 
him,  the  barrel  incrusted  with  rust,  the  lock  falling  off, 
and  the  stock  worm-eaten.     He  now  suspected  that  the 
grave  roisterers  of  the  mountain  had  put  a  trick  upon  him, 


14  Washington  Irving 

and,  having  dosed  him  with  liquor,  had  robbed  him  of  his 
gun.  Wolf,  too,  had  disappeared,  but  he  might  have 
strayed  away  after  a  squirrel  or  partridge.  He  whistled 
after  him,  and  shouted  his  name,  but  all  in  vain;  the  echoes 
5  repeated  his  whistle  and  shout,  but  no  dog  was  to  be 
seen. 

He  determined  to  revisit  the  scene  of  the  last  evening's 
gambol,  and  if  he  met  with  any  of  the  party  to  demand 
his  dog  and  gun.  As  he  rose  to  walk  he  found  himself  stiff 

10  in  the  joints,  and  wanting  in  his  usual  activity.  "These 
mountain  beds  do  not  agree  with  me,"  thought  Rip,  "and 
if  this  frolic  should  lay  me  up  with  a  fit  of  the  rheumatism, 
I  shall  have  a  blessed  time  with  Dame  Van  Winkle!" 
With  some  difficulty  he  got  down  into  the  glen;  he  found 

15  the  gully  up  which  he  and  his  companion  had  ascended  the 
preceding  evening;  but  to  his  astonishment  a  mountain 
stream  was  now  foaming  down  it,  leaping  from  rock  to  rock, 
and  filling  the  glen  with  babbling  murmurs.  He,  however, 
made  shift  to  scramble  up  its  sides,  working  his  toilsome 

20  way  through  thickets  of  birch,  sassafras,  and  witch-hazel, 
and  sometimes  tripped  up  or  entangled  by  the  wild  grape- 
vines that  twisted  their  coils  or  tendrils  from  tree  to  tree, 
and  spread  a  kind  of  network  in  his  path. 

At  length  he  reached  to  where  the  ravine  had  opened 

25  through  the  cliffs  to  the  amphitheater;  but  no  traces  of 
such  opening  remained.  The  rocks  presented  a  high,  im- 
penetrable wall,  over  which  the  torrent  came  tumbling 
in  a  sheet  of  feathery  foam,  and  fell  into  a  broad  deep  basin, 
black  from  the  shadows  of  the  surrounding  forest.  Here, 

30  then,  poor  Rip  was  brought  to  a  stand.  He  again  called 
and  whistled  after  his  dog;  he  was  only  answered  by  the 
cawing  of  a  flock  of  idle  crows,  sporting  high  in  air  about  a 
dry  tree  that  overhung  a  sunny  precipice;  and  who,  secure 
in  their  elevation,  seemed  to  look  down  and  scoff  at  the 


Rip  Van  Winkle  15 

poor  man's  perplexities.  What  was  to  be  done?  The 
morning  was  passing  away,  and  Rip  felt  famished  for  want 
of  his  breakfast.  He  grieved  to  give  up  his  dog  and  gun; 
he  dreaded  to  meet  his  wife;  but  it  would  not  do  to  starve 
among  the  mountains.  He  shook  his  head,  shouldered  the  5 
rusty  firelock,  and,  with  a  heart  full  of  trouble  and  anxiety, 
turned  his  steps  homeward, 

As  he  approached  the  village  he  met  a  number  of  people, 
but  none  whom  he  knew,  which  somewhat  surprised  him, 
for  he  had  thought  himself  acquainted  with  every  one  10 
in  the  country  round.    Their  dress,  too,  was  of  a  different 
fashion  from  that  to  which  he  was  accustomed.    They  all 
stared  at  him  with  equal  marks  of  surprise,  and  whenever 
they  cast  their  eyes  upon  him,  invariably  stroked  their 
chins.    The  constant  recurrence  of  this  gesture,  induced  15 
Rip,  involuntarily,  to  do  the  same,  when,  to  his  astonish- 
ment, he  found  his  beard  had  grown  a  foot  long! 

He  had  now  entered  the  skirts  of  the  village.  A  troop  of 
strange  children  ran  at  his  heels,  hooting  after  him,  and 
pointing  at  his  gray  beard.  The  dogs,  too,  not  one  of  20 
which  he  recognized  for  an  old  acquaintance,  barked  at 
him  as  he  passed.  The  very  village  was  altered;  it  was 
larger  and  more  populous.  There  were  rows  of  houses 
which  he  had  never  seen  before,  and  those  which  had  been 
his  familiar  haunts  had  disappeared.  Strange  names  were  25 
over  the  doors — strange  faces  at  the  windows — everything 
was  strange.  His  mind  now  misgave  him;  he  began  to 
doubt  whether  both  he  and  the  world  around  him  were  not 
bewitched.  Surely  this  was  his  native  village,  which  he 
had  left  but  the  day  before.  There  stood  the  Kaatskill  30 
mountains — there  ran  the  silver  Hudson  at  a  distance — 
there  was  every  hill  and  dale  precisely  as  it  had  always 
been.  Rip  was  sorely  perplexed.  "  That  flagon  last  night," 
thought  he,  "has  addled  my  poor  head  sadly!" 


16  Washington  Irving 

It  was  with  some  difficulty  that  he  found  the  way  to  his 
own  house,  which  he  approached  with  silent  awe,  expecting 
every  moment  to  hear  the  shrill  voice  of  Dame  Van  Winkle. 
He  found  the  house  gone  to  decay — the  roof  fallen  in,  the 

5  windows  shattered,  and  the  doors  off  the  hinges.  A  half- 
starved  dog  that  looked  like  Wolf  was  skulking  about  it. 
Rip  called  him  by  name,  but  the  cur  snarled,  showed  his 
teeth,  and  passed  on.  This  was  an  unkind  cut  indeed. 
"My  very  dog,"  sighed  poor  Rip,  "has  forgotten  me!" 

10  He  entered  the  house,  which,  to  tell  the  truth,  Dame 
Van  Winkle  had  always  kept  in  neat  order.  It  was  empty, 
forlorn,  and  apparently  abandoned.  This  desolateness 
overcame  all  his  connubial  fears — he  called  loudly  for  his 
wife  and  children — the  lonely  chambers  rang  for  a  moment 

15  with  his  voice,  and  then  all  again  was  silence. 

He  now  hurried  forth,  and  hastened  to  his  old  resort, 
the  village  inn — but  it,  too,  was  gone.  A  large,  rickety 
wooden  building  stood  in  its  place,  with  great  gaping  win- 
dows, some  of  them  broken  and  mended  with  old  hats  and 

20  petticoats,  and  over  the  door  was  painted,  "The  Union 
Hotel,  by  Jonathan  Doolittle."  Instead  of  the  great  tree 
that  used  to  shelter  the  quiet  little  Dutch  inn  of  yore,  there 
now  was  reared  a  tall  naked  pole,  with  something  on  the 
top  that  looked  like  a  red  nightcap,  and  from  it  was  flutter- 

25  ing  a  flag,  on  which  was  a  singular  assemblage  of  stars  and 
stripes; — all  this  was  strange  and  incomprehensible.  He 
recognized  on  the  sign,  however,  the  ruby  face  of  King 
George,  under  which  he  had  smoked  so  many  a  peacefu1 
pipe;  but  even  this  was  singularly  metamorphosed.  The 

30  red  coat  was  changed  for  one  of  blue  and  buff,  a  sword  was 
held  in  the  hand  instead  of  a  scepter,  the  head  was  dec- 
orated with  a  cocked  hat,  and  underneath  was  painted  in 
large  characters,  GENERAL  WASHINGTON. 
There  was,  as  usual,  a  crowd  of  folk  about  the  door,  but 


Rip  Van  Winkle  17 

none  that  Rip  recollected.  The  very  character  of  the 
people  seemed  changed.  There  was  a  busy,  bustling,  dis- 
putatious tone  about  it,  instead  of  the  accustomed  phlegm 
and  drowsy  tranquillity.  He  looked  in  vain  for  the  sage 
Nicholas  Vedder,  with  his  broad  face,  double  chin,  and  fair  5 
long  pipe,  uttering  clouds  of  tobacco  smoke  instead  of  idle 
speeches;  or  Van  Bummel,  the  schoolmaster,  doling  forth 
the  contents  of  an  ancient  newspaper.  In  place  of  these, 
a  lean,  bilious-looking  fellow,  with  his  pockets  full  of  hand- 
bills, was  haranguing  vehemently  about  rights  of  citizens —  10 
elections — members  of  Congress — liberty — Bunker's  Hill — 
heroes  of  '76 — and  other  words,  which  were  a  perfect 
Babylonish  jargon  to  the  bewildered  Van  Winkle. 

The  appearance  of  Rip,  with  his  long  grizzled  beard,  his 
rusty  fowling-piece,  his  uncouth  dress,  and  an  army  of  15 
women  and  children  at  his  heels,  soon  attracted  the  atten- 
tion of  the  tavern  politicians.  They  crowded  round  him, 
eying  him  from  head  to  foot  with  great  curiosity.  The 
orator  bustled  up  to  him,  and,  drawing  him  partly  aside, 
inquired  "  On  which  side  he  voted?  "  Rip  stared  in  vacant  20 
stupidity.  Another  short  but  busy  little  fellow  pulled  him 
by  the  arm,  and,  rising  on  tiptoe,  inquired  in  his  ear, 
"  Whether  he  was  Federal  or  Democrat?  "  Rip  was  equally 
at  a  loss  to  comprehend  the  question;  when  a  knowing, 
self-important  old  gentleman,  in  a  sharp  cocked  hat,  made  25 
his  way  through  the  crowd,  putting  them  to  the  right  and 
left  with  his  elbows  as  he  passed,  and  planting  himself  be- 
fore Van  Winkle,  with  one  arm  akimbo,  the  other  resting 
on  his  cane,  his  keen  eyes  and  sharp  hat  penetrating,  as  it 
were,  into  his  very  soul,  demanded  in  an  austere  tone,  30 
"What  brought  him  to  the  election  with  a  gun  on  his 
shoulder,  and  a  mob  at  his  heels;  and  whether  he  meant  to 
breed  a  riot  in  the  village?" — "Alas!  gentlemen,"  cried 
Rip,  somewhat  dismayed,  "I  am  a  poor,  quiet  man,  a 


1 8  Washington  Irving 

native  of  the  place,  and  a  loyal  subject  of  the  King,  God 
bless  him!" 

Here  a  general  shout  burst  from  the  by-standers — "A 
tory!  a  tory!  a  spy!  a  refugee!  hustle  him!  away  with  him!" 
5 It  was  with  great  difficulty  that  the  self-important  man  in 
the  cocked  hat  restored  order;  and,  having  assumed  a  ten- 
fold austerity  of  brow,  demanded  again  of  the  unknown 
culprit,  what  he  came  there  for,  and  whom  he  was  seeking? 
The  poor  man  humbly  assured  him  that  he  meant  no  harm, 
10  but  merely  came  there  in  search  of  some  of  his  neighbors, 
who  used  to  keep  about  the  tavern. 

"Well — who  are  they? — name  them." 

Rip    bethought    himself    a    moment,    and    inquired, 
"Where's  Nicholas  Vedder?" 

15  There  was  a  silence  for  a  little  while,  when  an  old  man 
replied,  in  a  thin,  piping  voice,  "Nicholas  Vedder!  Why, 
he  is  dead  and  gone  these  eighteen  years!  There  was  a 
wooden  tombstone  in  the  churchyard  that  used  to  tell  all 
about  him,  but  that's  rotten  and  gone  too." 
20  "  Where's  Brom  Butcher?  " 

"Oh,  he  went  off  to  the  army  in  the  beginning  of  the 

war;  some  say  he  was  killed  at  the  storming  of  Stony 

Point — others  say  he  was  drowned  in  a  squall  at  the  foot  of 

Antony's  Nose.   I  don't  know — he  never  came  back  again." 

25      "Where's  Van  Bummel,  the  schoolmaster?" 

"He  went  off  to  the  wars,  too,  was  a  great  militia  gen- 
eral, and  is  now  in  congress." 

Rip's  heart  died  away  at  hearing  of  these  sad  changes 
in  his  home  and  friends,  and  finding  himself  thus  alone  in 
30  the  world.  Every  answer  puzzled  him,  too,  by  treating 
of  such  enormous  lapses  of  time,  and  of  matters  which  he 
could  not  understand:  war — congress — Stony  Point — he 
had  no  courage  to  ask  after  any  more  friends,  but  cried  out 
in  despair,  "Does  nobody  here  know  Rip  Van  Winkle?" 


Rip  Van  Winkle  19 

"Oh,  Rip  Van  Winkle!"  exclaimed  two  or  three,  "oh, 
to  be  sure!  that's  Rip  Van  Winkle  yonder,  leaning  against 
the  tree." 

Rip  looked,  and  beheld  a  precise  counterpart  of  himself, 
as  he  went  up  the  mountain;  apparently  as  lazy,  and  cer-  5 
tainly  as  ragged.  The  poor  fellow  was  now  completely 
confounded.  He  doubted  his  own  identity,  and  whether 
he  was  himself  or  another  man.  In  the  midst  of  his  be- 
wilderment, the  man  in  the  cocked  hat  demanded  who  he 
was,  and  what  was  his  name.  10 

"God  knows,"  exclaimed  he,  at  his  wits'  end;  "I'm  not 
myself — I'm  somebody  else — that's  me  yonder — no — 
that's  somebody  else  got  into  my  shoes — I  was  myself  last 
night,  but  I  fell  asleep  on  the  mountain,  and  they've 
changed  my  gun,  and  everything's  changed,  and  I'm  15 
changed,  and  I  can't  tell  what's  my  name,  or  who  I 
am!" 

The  by-standers  began  now  to  look  at  each  other,  nod, 
wink  significantly,  and  tap  their  fingers  against  their  fore- 
heads.   There  was  a  whisper,  also,  about  securing  the  gun,  20 
and  keeping  the  old  fellow  from  doing  mischief,  at  the  very 
suggestion  of  which  the  self-important  man  in  the  cocked 
hat   retired   with   some   precipitation.     At   this   critical 
moment  a  fresh,  comely  woman  pressed  through  the  throng 
to  get  a  peep  at  the  gray-bearded  man.    She  had  a  chubby  25 
child  in  her  arms,  which,  frightened  at  his  looks,  began  to 
cry.    "Hush,  Rip,"  cried  she,  "hush,  you  little  fool;  the 
old  man  won't  hurt  you."    The  name  of  the  child,  the  air 
of  the  mother,  the  tone  of  her  voice,  all  awakened  a  train 
of  recollections  in  his  mind.     "What  is  your  name,  my  30 
good  woman?"  asked  he. 

"Judith  Gardenier." 

"And  your  father's  name?" 

"Ah,  poor  man,  Rip  Van  Winkle  was  his  name,  but 


2O  Washington  Irving 

it's  twenty  years  since  he  went  away  from  home  with  his 
gun,  and  never  has  been  heard  of  since — his  dog  came 
home  without  him;  but  whether  he  shot  himself,  or  was 
carried  away  by  the  Indians,  nobody  can  tell.  I  was  then 
5  but  a  little  girl." 

Rip  had  but  one  question  more  to  ask;  but  he  put  it  with 
a  faltering  voice: 

"Where's  your  mother?" 

"Oh,  she,  too,  had  died  but  a  short  time  since;  she  broke 
10  a  blood  vessel  in  a  fit  of  passion  at  a  New  England  ped- 
dler." 

There  was  a  drop  of  comfort,  at  least,  in  this  intelligence. 
The  honest  man  could  contain  himself  no  longer.  He 
caught  his  daughter  and  her  child  in  his  arms.  "  I  am  your 
15  father!"  cried  he — "Young  Rip  Van  Winkle  once — old 
Rip  Van  Winkle  now! — Does  nobody  know  poor  Rip  Van 
Winkle?" 

All  stood  amazed,  until  an  old  woman,  tottering  out 
from  among  the  crowd,  put  her  hand  to  her  brow,  and 
20  peering  under  it  in  his  face  for  a  moment,  exclaimed, 
"Sure  enough!  It  is  Rip  Van  Winkle — it  is  himself! 
Welcome  home  again,  old  neighbor.  Why,  where  have 
you  been  these  twenty  long  years?  " 

Rip's  story  was  soon  told,  for  the  whole  twenty  years 
25  had  been  to  him  but  as  one  night.    The  neighbors  stared 
when  they  heard  it;  some  were  seen  to  wink  at  each  other, 
and  put   their  tongues  in   their  cheeks;  and   the   self- 
important  man  in  the  cocked  hat,  -who,  when  the  alarm 
was  over,  had  returned  to  the  field,  screwed  down  the 
30  corners  of  his  mouth,  and  shook  his  head — upon  which 
there  was  a  general  shaking  of  the  head  throughout  the 
assemblage. 

It  was  determined,  however,  to  take  the  opinion  of  old 
Peter  Vanderdonk,  who  was  seen  slowly  advancing  up  the 


Rip  Van  Winkle  21 

road.  He  was  a  descendant  of  the  historian  of  that  name, 
who  wrote  one  of  the  earliest  accounts  of  the  province. 
Peter  was  the  most  ancient  inhabitant  of  the  village,  and 
well  versed  in  all  the  wonderful  events  and  traditions  of  the 
neighborhood.  He  recollected  Rip  at  once,  and  cor-  5 
roborated  his  story  in  the  most  satisfactory  manner.  He 
assured  the  company  that  it  was  a  fact,  handed  down  from 
his  ancestor  the  historian,  that  the  Kaatskill  mountains 
had  always  been  haunted  by  strange  beings.  That  it  was 
affirmed  that  the  great  Hendrick  Hudson,  the  first  dis-  10 
coverer  of  the  river  and  country,  kept  a  kind  of  vigil  there 
every  twenty  years,  with  his  crew  of  the  Half-moon;  being 
permitted  in  this  way  to  revisit  the  scenes  of  his  enter- 
prise, and  keep  a  guardian  eye  upon  the  river  and  the  great 
city  called  by  his  name.  That  his  father  had  once  seen  15 
them  in  their  old  Dutch  dresses  playing  at  ninepins  in  a 
hollow  of  the  mountain;  and  that  he  himself  had  heard,  one 
summer  afternoon,  the  sound  of  their  balls,  like  distant 
peals  of  thunder. 

To  make  a  long  story  short,  the  company  broke  up  and  20 
returned  to  the  more  important  concerns  of  the  election. 
Rip's  daughter  took  him  home  to  live  with  her;  she  had 
a  snug,  well-furnished  house,  and  a  stout,  cheery  farmer 
for  a  husband,  whom  Rip  recollected  for  one  of  the  urchins 
that  used  to  climb  upon  his  back.    As  to  Rip's  son  and  25 
heir,  who  was  the  ditto  of  himself,  seen  leaning  against  the 
tree,  he  was  employed  to  work  on  the  farm;  but  evinced 
an  hereditary  disposition  to  attend  to  anything  else  but 
his  business. 

Rip  now  resumed  his  old  walks  and  habits;  he  soon  found  30 
many  of  his  former  cronies,  though  all  rather  the  worse 
for  the  wear  and  tear  of  time;  and  preferred  making 
friends  among  the  rising  generation,  with  whom  he  soon 
grew  into  great  favor. 


22  Washington  Irving 

Having  nothing  to  do  at  home,  and  being  arrived  at 
that  happy  age  when  a  man  can  be  idle  with  impunity,  he 
took  his  place  once  more  on  the  bench  at  the  inn  door,  and 
was  reverenced  as  one  of  the  patriarchs  of  the  village,  and 
5  a  chronicle  of  the  old  times  "  before  the  war."  It  was  some 
time  before  he  could  get  into  the  regular  track  of  gossip, 
or  could  be  made  to  comprehend  the  strange  events  that 
had  taken  place  during  his  torpor.  How  that  there  had 
been  a  revolutionary  war — that  the  country  had  thrown  off 

10  the  yoke  of  old  England — and  that,  instead  of  being  a  sub- 
ject of  His  Majesty,  George  III.,  he  was  now  a  free  citizen 
of  the  United  States.  Rip,  in  fact,  was  no  politician;  the 
changes  of  states  and  empires  made  but  little  impression 
on  him;  but  there  was  one  species  of  despotism  under  which 

15  he  had  long  groaned,  and  that  was — petticoat  government. 
Happily  that  was  at  an  end;  he  had  got  his  neck  out  of  the 
yoke  of  matrimony,  and  could  go  in  and  out  whenever  he 
pleased,  without  dreading  the  tyranny  of  Dame  Van 
Winkle.  Whenever  her  name  was  mentioned,  however, 

20  he  shook  his  head,  shrugged  his  shoulders,  and  cast  up  his 
eyes;  which  might  pass  either  for  an  expression  of  resigna- 
tion to  his  fate  or  joy  at  his  deliverance. 

He  used  to  tell  his  story  to  every  stranger  that  arrived 
at  Mr.  Doolittle's  hotel.     He  was  observed,  at  first,  to 

25  vary  on  some  points  every  time  he  told  it,  which  was, 
doubtless,  owing  to  his  having  so  recently  awaked.  It  at 
last  settled  down  precisely  to  the  tale  I  have  related,  and 
not  a  man,  woman,  or  child  in  the  neighborhood  but  knew 
it  by  heart.  Some  always  pretended  to  doubt  the  reality 

30  of  it,  and  insisted  that  Rip  had  been  out  of  his  head,  and 
that  this  was  one  point  on  which  he  always  remained 
flighty.  The  old  Dutch  inhabitants,  however,  almost  uni- 
versally gave  it  full  credit.  Even  to  this  day  they  never 
hear  a  thunder  storm  of  a  summer  afternoon  about  the 


Rip  Van  Winkle  23 

Kaatskill,  but  they  say  Hendrick  Hudson  and  his  crew 
are  at  their  game  of  ninepins;  and  it  is  a  common  wish  of 
all  hen-pecked  husbands  in  the  neighborhood,  when  life 
hangs  heavy  on  their  hands,  that  they  might  have  a  quiet- 
ing draught  out  of  Rip  Van  Winkle's  flagon.  5 

NOTE 

The  foregoing  tale,  one  would  suspect,  had  been  suggested 
to  Mr.  Knickerbocker  by  a  little  German  superstition  about 
the  Emperor  Frederick  der  Rothbart,  and  the  Kypphauser 
mountain:  the  subjoined  note,  however,  which  he  had  appended 
to  the  tale,  shows  that  it  is  an  absolute  fact,  narrated  with  his  10 
usual  fidelity. 

"The  story  of  Rip  Van  Winkle  may  seem  incredible  to  many, 
but  nevertheless  I  give  it  my  full  belief,  for  I  know  the  vicinity 
of  our  old  Dutch  settlements  to  have  been  very  subject  to  mar- 
vellous events  and  appearances.  Indeed,  I  have  heard  many  15 
stranger  stories  than  this,  in  the  villages  along  the  Hudson;  all 
of  which  were  too  well  authenticated  to  admit  of  a  doubt.  I 
have  even  talked  with  Rip  Van  Winkle  myself,  who,  when  last 
I  saw  him,  was  a  very  venerable  old  man,  and  so  perfectly  ra- 
tional and  consistent  on  every  other  point,  that  I  think  no  20 
conscientious  person  could  refuse  to  take  this  into  the  bargain; 
nay,  I  have  seen  a  certificate  on  the  subject  taken  before  a  coun- 
try justice  and  signed  with  a  cross,  in  the  justice's  own  hand- 
writing. The  story,  therefore,  is  beyond  the  possibility  of  a 
doubt.  25 

"D.  K." 

POSTSCRIPT 

The  following  are  traveling  notes  from  a  memorandum  book 
of  Mr.  Knickerbocker: 

The  Kaatsberg,  or  Catskill  Mountains,  have  always  been  a 
region  full  of  fable.    The  Indians  considered  them  the  abode 
of  spirits,  who  influenced  the  weather,  spreading  sunshine  or  30 
clouds  over  the  landscape,  and  sending  good  or  bad  hunting 


24  Washington  Irving 

seasons.  They  were  ruled  by  an  old  squaw  spirit,  said  to  be 
their  mother.  She  dwelt  on  the  highest  peak  of  the  Catskills, 
and  had  charge  of  the  doors  of  day  and  night  to  open  and  shut 
them  at  the  proper  hour.  She  hung  up  the  new  moon  in  the 
5  skies,  and  cut  up  the  old  ones  into  stars.  In  times  of  drought, 
if  properly  propitiated,  she  would  spin  light  summer  clouds 
out  of  cobwebs  and  morning  dew,  and  send  them  off  from  the 
crest  of  the  mountain,  flake  after  flake,  like  flakes  of  carded 
cotton,  to  float  in  the  air;  until,  dissolved  by  the  heat  of  the 

10  sun,  they  would  fall  in  gentle  showers,  causing  the  grass  to 
spring,  the  fruits  to  ripen,  and  the  corn  to  grow  an  inch  an 
hour.  If  displeased,  however,  she  would  brew  up  clouds  black 
as  ink,  sitting  in  the  midst  of  them  like  a  bottle-bellied  spider 
in  the  midst  of  its  web;  and  when  these  clouds  broke,  woe 

15  betide  the  valleys! 

In  old  times,  say  the  Indian  traditions,  there  was  a  kind  of 
Manitou  or  Spirit,  who  kept  about  the  wildest  recesses  of  the 
Catskill  Mountains,  and  took  a  mischievous  pleasure  in  wreak- 
ing all  kinds  of  evils  and  vexations  upon  the  red  men.  Some- 

20  times  he  would  assume  the  form  of  a  bear,  a  panther,  or  a  deer, 
lead  the  bewildered  hunter  a  weary  chase  through  tangled 
forests  and  among  ragged  rocks;  and  then  spring  off  with  a 
loud  ho !  ho !  leaving  him  aghast  on  the  brink  of  a  beetling  prec- 
ipice or  raging  torrent. 

25  The  favorite  abode  of  this  Manitou  is  still  shown.  It  is  a 
great  rock  or  cliff  on  the  loneliest  part  of  the  mountains,  and, 
from  the  flowering  vines  which  clamber  about  it,  and  the  wild 
flowers  which  abound  in  its  neighborhood,  is  known  by  the 
name  of  the  Garden  Rock.  Near  the  foot  of  it  is  a  small  lake, 

30  the  haunt  of  the  solitary  bittern,  with  water-snakes  basking 
in  the  sun  on  the  leaves  of  the  pond-lilies  which  lie  on  the  sur- 
face. This  place  was  held  in  great  awe  by  the  Indians,  inso- 
much that  the  boldest  hunter  would  not  pursue  his  game  within 
its  precincts.  Once  upon  a  time,  however,  a  hunter  who  had 

35  lost  his  way,  penetrated  to  the  Garden  Rock,  where  he  beheld 
a  number  of  gourds  placed  in  the  crotches  of  trees.  One  of 
these  he  seized  and  made  off  with  it,  but  in  the  hurry  of  his 


Rip  Van  Winkle  25 

retreat  he  let  it  fall  among  the  rocks,  when  a  great  stream 
gushed  forth,  which  washed  him  away  and  swept  him  down 
precipices,  where  he  was  dashed  to  pieces,  and  the  stream  made 
its  way  to  the  Hudson,  and  continues  to  flow  to  the  present 
day;  being  the  identical  stream  known  by  the  name  of  the  5 
Kaaterskill. 


THE  MINISTER'S  BLACK  VEIL 


By  NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE 

THE  sexton  stood  in  the  porch  of  Milford  meeting-house, 
pulling  lustily  at  the  bell-rope.  The  old  people  of  the 
village  came  stooping  along  the  street.  Children  with 
bright  faces  tript  merrily  beside  their  parents,  or  mimicked 
5  a  graver  gait  in  the  conscious  dignity  of  their  Sunday 
clothes.  Spruce  bachelors  looked  sidelong  at  the  pretty 
maidens,  and  fancied  that  the  Sabbath  sunshine  made 
them  prettier  than  on  week-days.  When  the  throng  had 
mostly  streamed  into  the  porch,  the  sexton  began  to  toll 

10  the  bell,  keeping  his  eye  on  the  Reverend  Mr.  Hooper's 
door.  The  first  glimpse  of  the  clergyman's  figure  was  the 
signal  for  the  bell  to  cease  its  summons. 

"But  what  has  good  Parson  Hooper  got  upon  his  face? " 
cried  the  sexton  in  astonishment. 

15  All  within  hearing  immediately  turned  about,  and  be- 
held the  semblance  of  Mr.  Hooper  pacing  slowly  in  his' 
meditative  way  towards  the  meeting-house.  With  one 
accord  they  started,  expressing  monfwonder  than  if  some 
strange  minister  were  coming  to  dust  the  cushions  of  Mr. 

20  Hooper's  pulpit. 

"Are  you  sure  it  is  our  parson?"  inquired  Goodman 
Gray  of  the  sexton. 

1  Another  clergyman  in  New  England,  Mr.  Joseph  Moody,  of 
York,  Maine,  who  died  about  eighty  years  since,  made  himself  re- 
markable by  the  same  eccentricity  that  is  here  related  of  the  Reverend 
Mr.  Hooper.  In  his  case,  however,  the  symbol  had  a  different  import. 
In  early  life  he  had  accidentally  killed  a  beloved  friend;  and  from 
that  day  till  the  hour  of  his  own  death  he  hid  his  face  from  men. 

26 


The  Minister's  Black  Veil  27 

"Of  a  certainty  it  is  good  Mr.  Hooper,"  replied  the 
sexton.  "He  was  to  have  exchanged  pulpits  with  Parson 
Shute,  of  Westbury;  but  Parson  Shute  sent  to  excuse  him- 
self yesterday,  being  to  preach  a  funeral  sermon." 

The  cause  of  so  much  amazement  may  appear  sum-    5 
ciently  slight.     Mr.   Hooper,   a  gentlemanly  person   of 
about  thirty,  though  still  a  bachelor,  was  dressed  with  due 
clerical  neatness,  as  if  a  careful  wife  had  starched  his  band, 
and  brushed  the  weekly  dust  from  his  Sunday's  garb. 
There  was  but  one  thing  remarkable  in  his  appearance.  10 
Swathed  about  his  forehead,  and  hanging  down  over  his 
face  so  low  as  to  be  shaken  by  his  breath,  Mr.  Hooper 
had  on  a  black  veil.    On  a  nearer  view  it  seemed  to  con- 
sist of  two  folds  of  crape,  which  entirely  concealed  his 
features  except  the  mouth  and  chin,  but  probably  did  not  15 
intercept  his  sight  farther  than  to  give  a  darkened  aspect 
to  all  living  and  ^animate  things.     With  this  gloomy 
shade  before  him,  good  Mr.  Hooper  walked  onward  at  a 
slow  and  quiet  pace,  stooping  somewhat  and  looking  on 
the  ground,  as  is  customary  with  abstracted  men,  yet  20 
nodding  kindly  to  those  of  his  rjarishioners  who  still  waited 
on  the  meeting-house  steps.    But  so  wonder-struck  were 
they  that  his  greeting  hardly  met  with  a  return. 

"I  can't  really  feel  as  if  good  Mr.  Hooper's  face  was 
behind  that  piece  of  crape,"  said  the  sexton.  25 

"I  don't  like  it,"  muttered  an  old  woman,  as  she  hobbled 
into  the  meeting-house.  "He  has  changed  himself  into 
something  awful  only  by  hiding  his  face." 

"Our  parson  has  gone  mad!"  cried  Goodman  Gray, 
following  him  across  the  threshold.  30 

A  rumor  of  some  unaccountable  phenomenon  had  pre- 
ceded  Mr.  Hooper  into  the  meeting-liouse,\nd  set  all  the 
congregation  astir.  Few  could  refrain  from  twisting  their 
heads  towards  the  door;  many  stood  upright  and  turned 


28  Nathaniel  Hawthorne 

directly  about;  while  several  little  boys  clambered  upon 
the  seats,  and  came  down  again  with  a  terrible  racket. 
There  was  a  general  bustle,  a  rustling  of  the  women's 
gowns  and  shuffling  of  the  men's  feet,  greatly  at  variance 
5  with  that  hushed  repose  which  should  attend  the  entrance 
of  the  minister.  But  Mr.  Hooper  appeared  not  to  notice 
the  perturbation  of  his  people.  He  entered  with  an  almost 
noiseless  step,  bent  his  head  mildly  to  the  pews  on  each 
side,  and  bowed  as  he  passed  his  oldest  parishioner,  a  white- 

10  haired  great-grandsire,  who  occupied  an  arm-chair  in  the 
center  of  the  aisle.  It  was  strange  to  observe  how  slowly 
this  venerable  man  became  conscious  of  something  sin- 
gular in  the  appearance  of  his  pastor.  He  seemed  not 
fully  to  partake  of  the  prevailing  wonder  till  Mr.  Hooper 

15  had  ascended  the  stairs,  and  showed  himself  in  the  pulpit 
face  to  face  with  his  congregation  except  for  the  black  veil. 
That  mysterious  emblem  was  never  once  withdrawn.  It 
shook  with  his  measured  breath  as  he  gave  out  the  psalm ; 
it  threw  its  obscurity  between  him  and  the  holy  page  as 

20  he  read  the  Scriptures;  and  while  he  prayed,  the  veil  lay 
heavily  on  his  uplifted  countenance.  Did  he  seek  to  hide 
it  from  the  dread  Being  whom  he  was  addressing? 

Such  was  the  effect  of  this  simple  piece  of  crape  that 
more  than  one  woman  of  delicate  nerves  was  forced  to 

25  leave  the  meeting-house.  Yet  perhaps  the  pale-faced  con- 
gregation was  almost  as  fearful  a  sight  to  the  minister  as 
his  black  veil  to  them. 

Mr.  Hooper  had  the  reputation  of  a  good  preacher,  but 
not  an  energetic  one:  he  strove  to  win  his  people  heaven- 

30  ward  by  mild,  persuasive  injLugnces,  rather  than  to  drive 
them  thither  by  the  thunders  of  the  Word.  The  sermon 
which  he  now  delivered  was  marked  by  the  same  charac- 
teristics of  style  and  manner  as  the  general  series  of  his 
pulpit  oratory.  But  there  was  something  either  in  the 


The  Minister's  Black  Veil  29 

sentiment  of  the  discourse  itself,  or  in  the  imagination  of 
the  auditors,  which  made  it  greatly  the  most  powerful 
effort  that  they  had  ever  heard  from  their  pastor's  lips. 
It  was  tinged  rather  more  darkly  than  usual  with  the 
gentle  gloom  of  Mr.  Hooper's  temperament.  The  subject  5 
had  reference  to  secret  sin,  and  those  sad  mysteries  which 
we  hide  from  our  nearest  and  dearest,  and  would  fain  con- 
ceal from  our  own  consciousness,  even  forgetting  that  the 
Omniscient  can  detect  them.  A  subtle  power  was  breathed 
into  his  words.  Each  member  of  the  congregation,  the  10 
most  innocent  girl,  and  the  man  of  hardened  breast,  felt 
as  if  the  preacher  had  crept  upon  them  behind  his  awful 
veil,  and  discovered  their  hoarded  iniquity  of  deed  or 
thought.  Many  spread  their  clasped  hands  on  their 
bosoms.  There  was  nothing  terrible  in  what  Mr.  Hooper  15 
said;  at  least,  no  violence;  and  yet,  with  every  tremor  of 
his  melancholy  voice  the  hearers  quaked.  An  unsought 
pathos  came  hand  in  hand  with  awe.  So  sensible  were  the 
audience  of  some  unwonted  attribute  in  their  minister,  that 
they  longed  for  a  breath  of  wind  to  blow  aside  the  veil,  20 
almost  believing  that  a  stranger's  visage  would  be  dis- 
covered, though  the  form,  gesture,  and  voice  were  those 
of  Mr.  Hooper. 

At  the  close  of  the  service  the  people  hurried  out  with 
indecorous  confusion,  eager  to  communicate  their  pent-  25 
up  amazement,  and  conscious  of  lighter  spirits  the  moment 
they  lost  sight  of  the  black  veil.  Some  gathered  in  little 
circles,  huddled  closely  together,  with  their  mouths  all 
whispering  in  the  center;  some  went  homeward  alone, 
wrapt  in  silent  meditation;  some  talked  loudly,  and  pro-  30 
faned  the  Sabbath-day  with  ostentatious  laughter.  A 
few  shook  their  sagacious  heads,  intimating  that  they 
could  penetrate  the  mystery;  while  one  or  two  affirmed  that 
there  was  no  mystery  at  all,  but  only  that  Mr.  Hooper's 


30  Nathaniel  Hawthorne 

eyes  were  so  weakened  by  the  midnight  lamp  as  to  require 
a  shade.  After  a  brief  interval,  forth  came  good  Mr. 
Hooper  also,  in  the  rear  of  his  flock.  Turning  his  veiled 
face  from  one  group  to  another,  he  paid  due  reverence  to 
5  the  hoary  heads,  saluted  the  middle-aged  with  kind  dig- 
nity, as  their  friend  and  spiritual  guide,  greeted  the  young 
with  mingled  authority  and  love,  and  laid  his  hands  on  the 
little  children's  heads  to  bless  them.  Such  was  always  his 
custom  on  the  Sabbath-day.  Strange  and  bewildered 

10  looks  repaid  him  for  his  courtesy.  None,  as  on  former 
occasions,  aspired  to  the  honor  of  walking  by  their  pas- 
tor's side.  Old  Squire  Saunders,  doubtless  by  an  acci- 
dental lapse  of  memory,  neglected  to  invite  Mr.  Hooper 
to  his  table,  where  the  good  clergyman  had  been  wont  to 

15  bless  the  food  almost  every  Sunday  since  his  settlement. 
He  returned,  therefore,  to  the  parsonage,  and,  at  the 
moment  of  closing  the  door,  was  observed  to  look  back 
upon  the  people,  all  of  whom  had  their  eyes  fixed  upon 
the  minister.  A  sad  smile  gleamed  faintly  from  beneath 

20  the  black  veil,  and  flickered  about  his  mouth,  glimmering 
as  he  disappeared. 

"How  strange,"  said  a  lady,  "that  a  simple  black  veil, 
such  as  any  woman  might  wear  on  her  bonnet,  should 
become  such  a  terrible  thing  on  Mr.  Hooper's  face!" 

25  "Something  must  surely  be  amiss  with  Mr.  Hooper's 
intellects,"  observed  her  husband,  the  physician  of  the 
village.  "But  the  strangest  part  of  the  affair  is  the  effect 
of  this  vagary,  even  on  a  sober-minded  man  like  myself. 
The  black  veil,  though  it  covers  only  our  pastor's  face, 

30  throws  its  influence  over  his  whole  person,  and  makes  him 
ghostlike  from  head  to  foot.  Do  you  not  feel  it  so?  " 

"Truly  do  I,"  replied  the  lady;  "and  I  would  not  be 
alone  with  him  for  the  world.  I  wonder  he  is  not  afraid 
to  be  alone  with  himself!" 


The  Minister's  Black  Veil  31 

"Men  sometimes  are  so,"  said  her  husband. 

The  afternoon  service  was  attended  with  similar  cir- 
cumstances.    At  its  conclusion,  the  bell  tolled  for  the 
funeral  of  a  young  lady.    The  relatives  and  friends  were 
assembled  in  the  house,  and  the  more  distant  acquaint-    5 
ances  stood  about  the  door,  speaking  of  the  good  qualities 
of  the  deceased,  when  their  talk  was  interrupted  by  the 
appearance  of  Mr.  Hooper,  still  covered  with  his  black 
veil.    It  was  now  an  appropriate  emblem.    The  clergyman 
stepped  into  the  room  where  the  corpse  was  laid,  and  bent  10 
over  the  coffin  to  take  a  last  farewell  of  his  deceased  parish- 
ioner.   As  he  stooped,  the  veil  hung  straight  down  from 
his  forehead,  so  that,  if  her  eyelids  had  not  been  closed  for 
ever,  the  dead  maiden  might  have  seen  his  face.     Could 
Mr.  Hooper  be  fearful  of  her  glance,  that  he  so  hastily  15 
caught  back  the  black  veil?    A  person  who  watched  the 
interview  between  the  dead  and  living  scrupled  not  to 
affirm  that,  at  the  instant  when  the  clergyman's  features 
were  disclosed,  the  corpse  had  slightly  shuddered,  rustling 
the  shroud  and  muslin  cap,  though  the  countenance  re-  20 
tained  the  composure  of  death.    A  superstitious  old  woman 
was  the  only  witness  of  this  prodigy.     From  the  coffin 
Mr.  Hooper  passed  into  the  chamber  of  the  mourners,  and 
thence  to  the  head  of  the  staircase,  to  make  the  funeral 
prayer.    It  was  a  tender  and  heart-dissolving  prayer,  full  25 
of  sorrow,  yet  so  imbued  with  celestial  hopes  that  the 
music  of  a  heavenly  harp,  swept  by  the  fingers  of  the  dead, 
seemed  faintly  to  be  heard  among  the  saddest  accents  of 
the  minister.     The  people  trembled,   though  they  but 
darkly  understood  him,  when  he  prayed  that  they,  and  30 
himself,  and  all  of  mortal  race,  might  be  ready,  as  he 
trusted  this  young  maiden  had  been,  for  the  dreadful 
hour  that  should  snatch  the  veil  from  their  faces.    The  */ 
bearers  went  heavily  forth,  and  the  mourners  followed, 


32  Nathaniel  Hawthorne 

saddening  all  the  street,  with  the  dead  before  them,  and 
Mr.  Hooper  in  the  black  veil  behind. 

"Why  do  you  look  back?"  said  one  in  the  procession 
to  his  partner. 

5      "I  had  a  fancy,"  replied  she,  "that  the  minister  and  the 
maiden's  spirit  were  walking  hand  in  hand." 

"And  so  had  I  at  the  same  moment,"  said  the  other. 
That  night  the  handsomest  couple  in  Milford  village 
were  to  be  joined  in  wedlock.    Though  reckoned  a  melan- 

10  choly  man,  Mr.  Hooper  had  a  placid  cheerfulness  for  such 
occasions  which  often  excited  a  sympathetic  smile  where 
livelier  merriment  would  have  been  thrown  away.  There 
was  no  quality  of  his  disposition  which  made  him  more 
beloved  than  this.  The  company  at  the  wedding  awaited 

15  his  arrival  with  impatience,  trusting  that  the  strange  awe 
which  had  gathered  over  him  throughout  the  day  would 
now  be  dispelled.  But  such  was  not  the  result.  When 
Mr.  Hooper  came,  the  first  thing  that  their  eyes  rested  on 
was  the  same  horrible  black  veil,  which  had  added  deeper 

20  gloom  to  the  funeral,  and  could  portend  nothing  but  evil 
to  the  wedding.  Such  was  its  immediate  effect  on  the 
guests,  that  a  cloud  seemed  to  have  rolled  duskily  from 
beneath  the  black  cra^e  and  dimmed  the  light  of  the  can- 
dles. The  bridal  pair  stood  up  before  the  minister.  But 

25  the  bride's  cold  fingers  quivered  in  the  tremulous  hand  of 
the  bridegroom,  and  her  deathlike  paleness  caused  a  whis- 
per that  the  maiden  who  had  been  buried  a  few  hours 
before  was  come  from  her  grave  to  be  married.  If  ever 
another  wedding  were  so  dismal,  it  was  that  famous  one 

30  where  they  tolled  the  wedding  knell.  After  performing 
the  ceremony,  Mr.  Hooper  raised  a  glass  of  wine  to  his 
lips,  wishing  happiness  to  the  new-married  couple,  in  a 
strain  of  mild  pleasantry  that  ought  to  have  brightened 
the  features  of  the  guests,  like  a  cheerful  gleam  from  the 


The  Minister's  Black  Veil  33 

hearth.  At  that  instant,  catching  a  glimpse  of  his  figure 
in  the  looking-glass,  the  black  veil  involved  his  own 
spirit  in  the  horror  with  which  it  overwhelmed  all  others. 
His  frame  shuddered — his  lips  grew  white — he  spilt  the 
untasted  wine  upon  the  carpet — and  rushed  forth  into  5 
the  darkness.  For  the  earth,  too,  had  on  her  black 
veil. 

The  next  day  the  whole  village  of  Milford  talked  of  little 
else  than  Parson  Hooper's  black  veil.  That,  and  the 
mystery  concealed  behind  it,  supplied  a  topic  for  discus-  10 
sion  between  acquaintances  meeting  in  the  street,  and  good 
women  gossiping  at  their  open  windows.  It  was  the  first 
item  of  news  that  the  tavern-keeper  told  to  his  guests. 
The  children  babbled  of  it  on  their  way  to  school.  One 
imitative  little  imp  covered  his  face  with  an  old  black  15 
handkerchief,  thereby  so  affrighting  his  playmates  that 
the  panic  seized  himself,  and  he  well-nigh  lost  his  wits 
by  his  own  waggery. 

It  was  remarkable  that,  of  all  the  busylpodies  and  im- 
pertinent people  in  the  parish,  not  one  ventured  to  put  20 
the  plain  question  to  Mr.  Hooper,  wherefore  he  did  this 
thing.  Hitherto,  whenever  there  appeared  the  slightest 
call  for  such  interference,  he  had  never  lacked  advisers, 
nor  shown  himself  averse  to  be  guided  by  their  judgment. 
If  he  erred  at  all,  it  was  by  so  painful  a  degree  of  self-  25 
distrust  that  even  the  mildest  censure  would  lead  him  to 
consider  an  indifferent  action  as  a  crime.  Yet,  though  so 
well  acquainted  with  this  amiable,  weakness,  no  individual 
among  his  parishioners  chose  to  make  the  black  veil  a 
subject  of  friendly  remonstrance.  There  was  a  feeling  of  30 
dread,  neither  plainly  confessed  nor  carefully  concealed, 
which  caused  each  to  shift  the  responsibility  upon  another, 
till  at  length  it  was  found  expedient  to  send  a  deputation 
of  the  church,  in  order  to  deal  with  Mr.  Hooper  about 


34  Nathaniel  Hawthorne 

the  mystery  before  it  should  grow  into  a  scandal.  Never 
did  an  embassy  so  ill  discharge  its  duties.  The  minister 
received  them  with  friendly  courtesy,  but  became  silent 
after  they  were  seated,  leaving  to  his  visitors  the  whole 
5  burden  of  introducing  their  important  business.  The 
topic,  it  might  be  supposed,  was  obvious  enough.  There 
was  the  black  veil  swathed  round  Mr.  Hooper's  forehead, 
and  concealing  every  feature  above  his  placid  mouth, 
on  which  at  times  they  could  perceive  the  glimmering  of 

10  a  melancholy  smile.  But  that  piece  of  crape,  to  their 
imagination,  seemed  to  hang  down  before  his  heart,  the 
symbol  of  a  fearful  secret  between  him  and  them.  Were 
the  veil  but  cast  aside  they  might  speak  freely  of  it,  but 
not  till  then.  Thus  they  sat  a  considerable  time,  speech- 

15  less,  confused,  and  shrinking  uneasily  from  Mr.  Hooper's 
eye,  which  they  felt  to  be  fixed  upon  them  with  an  invisible 
glance.  Finally,  the  deputies  returned  abashed  to  their 
constituents,  pronouncing  the  matter  too  weighty  to  be 
handled,  except  by  a  council  of  the  churches,  if  indeed 

ao  it  might  not  require  a  general  synod. 

But  there  was  one  person  in  the  village  unappalled  by 
the  awe  with  which  the  black  veil  had  impressed  all  beside 
herself.  When  the  deputies  returned  without  an  explana- 
tion, or  even  venturing  to  demand  one,  she,  with  the  calm 

25  energy  of  her  character,  determined  to  chase  away  the 
strange  cloud  that  appeared  to  be  settling  round  Mr. 
Hooper,  every  moment  more  darkly  than  before.  As  his 
plighted  wife,  it  should  be  her  privilege  to  know  what  the 
black  veil  concealed.  At  the  minister's  first  visit,  there- 

30  fore,  she  entered  upon  the  subject  with  a  direct  simplicity 
which  made  the  task  easier  both  for  him  and  her.  After 
he  had  seated  himself  she  fixed  her  eyes  steadfastly  upon 
the  veil,  but  could  discern  nothing  of  the  dreadful  gloom 
that  had  so  overawed  the  multitude;  it  was  but  a  double 


The  Minister's  Black  Veil  35 

fold  of  crape,  hanging  down  from  his  forehead  to  his 
mouth,  and  slightly  stirring  with  his  breath. 

"No,"  said  she  aloud,  and  smiling,  " there  is  nothing 
terrible  in  this  piece  of  crape,  except  that  it  hides  a  face 
which  I  am  always  glad  to  look  upon.     Come,  good  sir,    5 
let  the  sun  shine  from  behind  the  cloud.    First  lay  aside 
your  black  veil:  then  tell  me  why  you  put  it  on." 

Mr.  Hooper's  smile  glimmered  faintly. 

"There  is  an  hour  to  come,"  said  he,  "when  all  of  us 
shall  cast  aside  our  veils.     Take  it  not  amiss,  beloved  10 
friend,  if  I  wear  this  piece  of  crape  till  then." 

"Your  words  are  a  mystery  too,"  returned  the  young 
lady.  "Take  away  the  veil  from  them  at  least." 

"Elizabeth,  I  will,"  said  he,  "so  far  as  my  vow  may 
suffer  me.    Know,  then,  this  veil  is  a  type  and  a  symbol,  15 
and  I  am  bound  to  wear  it  ever,  both  in  light  and  darkness, 
in  solitude  and  before  the  gaze  of  multitudes,  and  as  with 
strangers,  so  with  my  familiar  friends.     No  mortal  eye 
will  see  it  withdrawn.    This  dismal  shade  must  separate 
me  from  the  world:  even  you,  Elizabeth,  can  never  come  20 
behind  it!" 

"What  grievous  affliction  hath  befallen  you,"  she  ear- 
nestly inquired,  "  that  you  should  thus  darken  your  eyes  for 
ever?" 

"If  it  be  a  sign  of  mourning,"  replied  Mr.  Hooper,  "I,  25 
perhaps,  like  most  other  mortals,  have  sorrows  dark  enough 
to  be  typified  by  a  black  veil." 

"But  what  if  the  world  will  not  believe  that  it  is  the 
type  of  an  innocent  sorrow?  "  urged  Elizabeth.    "  Beloved 
and  respected  as  you  are,  there  may  be  whispers  that  you  30 
hide  your  face  under  the  consciousness  of  secret  sin.    For 
the  sake  of  your  holy  office,  do  away  this  scandal!" 

The  color  rose  into  her  cheeks  as  she  intimated  the  na- 
ture of  the  rumors  that  were  already  abroad  in  the  village. 


36  Nathaniel  Hawthorne 

But  Mr.  Hooper's  mildness  did  not  forsake  him.  He  even 
smiled  again — that  same  sad  smile,  which  always  appeared 
like  a  faint  glimmering  of  light  proceeding  from  the  ob- 
scurity beneath  the  veil. 

5  "If  I  hide  my  face  for  sorrow,  there  is  cause  enough," 
he  merely  replied;  "and  if  I  cover  it  for  secret  sin,  what 
mortal  might  not  do  the  same?" 

And  with  this  gentle  but  unconquerable  obstinacy  did 
he  resist  all  her  entreaties.    At  length  Elizabeth  sat  silent. 
10  For  a  few  moments  she  appeared  lost  in  thought,  con- 
sidering, probably,  what  new  methods  might  be  tried  to 
withdraw  her  lover  from  so  dark  a  fantasy,  which,  if  it 
had  no  other  meaning,  was  perhaps  a  symptom  of  mental 
disease.    Though  of  a  firmer  character  than  his  own,  the 
15  tears  rolled  down  her  cheeks.     But  in  an  instant,  as  it 
were,  a  new  feeling  took  the  place  of  sorrow.:  her  eyes  were 
fixed  insensibly  on  the  black  veil,  when,  like  a  sudden 
twilight  in  the  air,  its  terrors  fell  around  her.    She  arose, 
and  stood  trembling  before  him. 
po      "And  do  you  feel  it  then  at  last?  "  said  he  mournfully. 

She  made  no  reply,  but  covered  her  eyes  with  her  hand, 
and  turned  to  leave  the  room.  He  rushed  forward  and 
caught  her  arm. 

"Have  patience  with  me,  Elizabeth!"  cried  he  pas- 

25  sionately.    "Do  not  desert  me,  though  this  veil  must  be 

between  us  here  on  earth.    Be  mine,  and  hereafter  there 

shall  be  no  veil  over  my  face,  no  darkness  between  our 

souls!    It  is  but  a  mortal  veil— it  is  not  for  eternity!    Oh! 

you  know  not  how  lonely  I  am,  and  how  frightened,  to  be 

30  alone  behind  my  black  veil.     Do  not  leave  me  in  this 

miserable  obscurity  for  ever!" 

"Lift  the  veil  but  once  and  look  me  in  the  face,"  said  she. 

"Never!    It  cannot  be!"  replied  Mr.  Hooper. 

"Then,  farewell!"  said  Elizabeth. 


The  Minister's  Black  Veil  37 

She  withdrew  her  arm  from  his  grasp  and  slowly  de- 
parted, pausing  at  the  door  to  give  one  long,  shuddering 
gaze,  that  seemed  almost  to  penetrate  the  mystery  of  the 
black  veil.    But  even  amid  his  grief  Mr.  Hooper  smiled 
to  think  that  only  a  material  emblem  had  separated  him    5 
from  happiness,  though  the  horrors  which  it  shadowed      / 
forth  must  be  drawn  darkly  between  the  fondest  of  lovers. 

From  that  time  no  attempts  were  made  to  remove  Mr. 
Hooper's  black  veil,  or,  by  a  direct  appeal,  to  discover  the 
secret  which  it  was  supposed  to  hide.  By  persons  who  10 
claimed  a  superiority  to  popular  prejudice  it  was  reckoned 
merely  an  eccentric  whim,  such  as  often  mingles  with  the 
sober  actions  of  men  otherwise  rational,  and  tinges  them 
all  with  its  own  semblance  of  insanity.  But  with  the  mul- 
titude good  Mr.  Hooper  was  irreparably  a  bugbear.  He  15 
could  not  walk  the  streets  with  any  peace  of  mind,  so 
conscious  was  he  that  the  gentle  and  timid  would  turn 
aside  to  avoid  him,  and  that  others  would  make  it  a  point 
of  hardihood  to  throw  themselves  in  his  way.  The  im- 
pertinence of  the  latter  class  compelled  him  to  give  up  his  20 
customary  walk  at  sunset  to  the  burial-ground;  for  when 
he  leaned  pensively  over  the  gate,  there  would  always  be 
faces  behind  the  grave-stones  peeping  at  his  black  veil. 
A  fable  went  the  rounds  that  the  stare  of  the  dead  people 
drove  him  thence.  It  grieved  him  to  the  very  depth  of  25 
his  kind  heart  to  observe  how  the  children  fled  from  his 
approach,  breaking  up  their  merriest  sports  while  his 
melancholy  figure  was  yet  afar  off.  Their  instinctive 
dread  caused  him  to  feel  more  strongly  than  aught  else 
that  a  preternatural  horror  was  interwoven  with  the  30 
threads  of  the  black  crape.  In  truth,  his  own  antipathy  to 
the  veil  was  known  to  be  so  great  that  he  never  willingly 
passed  before  a  mirror,  nor  stooped  to  drink  at  a  still 
fountain,  lest  in  its  peaceful  bosom  he  should  be  affrighted 


38  Nathaniel  Hawthorne 

by  himself.  This  was  what  gave  plausibility  to  the  whis- 
pers, that  Mr.  Hooper's  conscience  tortured  him  for  some 
great  crime  too  horrible  to  be  entirely  concealed,  or  other- 
wise than  so  obscurely  intimated.  Thus  from  beneath 
5  the  black  veil  there  rolled  a  cloud  into  the  sunshine,  an 
ambiguity  of  sin  or  sorrow,  which  enveloped  the  poor 
minister,  so  that  love  or  sympathy  could  never  reach  him. 
It  was  said  that  ghost  and  fiend  consorted  with  him  there. 
With  self-shudderings  and  outward  terrors  he  walked  con- 

10  tinually  in  its  shadow,  groping  darkly  within  his  own  soul, 
or  gazing  through  a  medium  that  saddened  the  whole 
world.  Even  the  lawless  wind,  it  was  believed,  respected 
his  dreadful  secret  and  never  blew  aside  the  veil.  But  still 
good  Mr.  Hooper  sadly  smiled  at  the  pale  visages  of  the 

15  worldly  throng  as  he  passed  by. 

Among  all  its  bad  influences,  the  black  veil  had  the  one 
desirable  effect  of  making  its  wearer  a  very  efficient  clergy- 
man. By  the  aid  of  his  mysterious  emblem — for  there 
was  no  other  apparent  cause — he  became  a  man  of  awful 

20  power  over  souls  that  were  in  agony  for  sin.  His  converts 
always  regarded  him  with  a  dread  peculiar  to  themselves, 
affirming,  though  but  figuratively,  that,  before  he  brought 

v  them  to  celestial  light,  they  had  been  with  him  behind 
the  black  veil.  Its  gloom,  indeed,  enabled  him  to  sym- 

25  pathize  with  all  dark  affections.  Dying  sinners  cried 
aloud  for  Mr.  Hooper,  and  would  not  yield  their  breath  till 
he  appeared; -though  ever,  as  he  stooped  to  whisper  con- 
solation, they  shuddered  at  the  veiled  face  so  near  their 
own.  Such  were  the  terrors  of  the  black  veil,  even  when 

30  Death  had  bared  his  visage!  Strangers  came  long  dis- 
tances to  attend  service  at  his  church,  with  the  mere  idle 
purpose  of  gazing  at  his  figure,  because  it  was  forbidden 
them  to  behold  his  face.  But  many  were  made  to  quake 
ere  they  departed!  Once,  during  Governor  Belcher's  ad- 


The  Minister's  Black:  Veil  59 

ministration,  Mr.  Hooper  was  appointed  to  preach  the 
election  sermon.  Covered  with  his  black  veil,  he  stood 
before  the  chief  magistrate,  the  council,  and  the  represent- 
atives, and  wrought  so  deep  an  impression  that  the  legisla- 
tive measures  of  that  year  were  characterized  by  all  the  5 
gloom  and  piety  of  our  earliest  ancestral  sway. 

In  this  manner  Mr.  Hooper  spent  a  long  life,  irreproach- 
able in  outward  act,  yet  shrouded  in  dismal  suspicions; 
kind  and  loving,  though  unloved,  and  dimly  feared;  a  man 
apart  from  men,  shunned  in  their  health  and  joy,  but  ever  10 
summoned  to  their  aid  in  mortal  anguish.  As  years  wore 
on,  shedding  their  snows  above  his  sable  veil,  he  acquired 
a  name  throughout  the  New  England  churches,  and  they 
called  him  Father  Hooper.  Nearly  all  his  parishioners 
who  were  of  mature  age  when  he  was  settled  had  been  15 
borne  away  by  many  a  funeral:  he  had  one  congregation 
in  the  church,  and  a  more  crowded  one  in  the  church- 
yard; and  having  wrought  so  late  into  the  evening,  and 
done  his  work  so  well,  it  was  now  good  Father  Hooper's 
turn  to  rest.  20 

Several  persons  were  visible  by  the  shaded  candlelight 
in  the  death-chamber  of  the  old  clergyman.  Natural 
connections  he  had  none.  But  there  was  the  decorously 
grave  though  unmoved  physician,  seeking  only  to  mitigate 
the  last  pangs  of  the  patient  whom  he  could  not  save.  25 
There  were  the  deacons,  and  other  eminently  pious  mem- 
bers of  his  church.  There,  also,  was  the  Reverend  Mr. 
Clark,  of  Westbury,  a  young  and  zealous  divine,  who  had 
ridden  in  haste  to  pray  by  the  bedside  of  the  expiring 
minister.  There  was  the  nurse,  no  hired  handmaiden  of  30 
death,  but  one  whose  calm  affection  had  endured  thus  long 
in  secrecy,  in  solitude,  amid  the  chill  of  age,  and  would 
not  perish,  even  at  the  dying  hour.  Who,  but  Elizabeth! 
And  there  lay  the  hoary  head  of  good  Father  Hooper  upon 


4°  Nathaniel  Hawthorne 

the  death-pillow,  with  the  black  veil  still  swathed  about 
his  brow  and  reaching  down  over  his  face,  so  that  each 
more  difficult  gasp  of  his  faint  breath  caused  it  to  stir.  All 
through  life  that  piece  of  crape  had  hung  between  him  and 
5  the  world:  it  had  separated  him  from  cheerful  brotherhood 
and  woman's  love,  and  kept  him  in  that  saddest  of  all 
prisons,  his  own  heart;  and  still  it  lay  upon  his  face,  as  if 
to  deepen  the  gloom  of  his  darksome  chamber,  and  shade 
him  from  the  sunshine  of  eternity. 

10  For  some  time  previous  his  mind  had  been  confused, 
wavering  doubtfully  between  the  past  and  the  present,  and 
hovering  forward,  as  it  were,  at  intervals,  into  the  indis- 
tinctness of  the  world  to  come.  There  had  been  feverish 
turns,  which  tossed  him  from  side  to  side,  and  wore  away 

15  what  little  strength  he  had.  But  in  his  most  convulsive 
struggles,  and  in  the  wildest  vagaries  of  his  intellect,  when 
no  other  thought  retained  its  sober  influence,  he  still 
showed  an  awful  solicitude  lest  the  black  veil  should  slip 
aside.  Even  if  his  bewildered  soul  could  have  forgotten, 

20  there  was  a  faithful  woman  at  his  pillow,  who,  with  averted 
eyes,  would  have  covered  that  aged  face,  which  she  had 
last  beheld  in  the  comeliness  of  manhood.  At  length 
the  death-stricken  old  man  lay  quietly  in  the  torpor  of 
mental  and  bodily  exhaustion,  with  an  imperceptible  pulse, 

25  and  breath  that  grew  fainter  and  fainter,  except  when  a 
long,  deep,  and  irregular  inspiration  seemed  to  prelude 
the  flight  of  his  spirit. 

The  minister  of  Westbury  approached  the  bedside. 
" Venerable  Father  Hooper,"  said  he,  "the  moment  of 

30  your  release  is  at  hand.  Are  you  ready  for  the  lifting  of 
the  veil  that  shuts  in  time  from  eternity?" 

Father  Hooper  at  first  replied  merely  by  a  feeble  mo- 
tion of  his  head;  then,  apprehensive,  perhaps,  that  his 
meaning  might  be  doubtful,  he  exerted  himself  to  speak. 


The  Minister's  Black  Veil  41 

"Yea,"  said  he,  in  faint  accents,  "my  soul  hath  a  pa- 
tient weariness  until  that  veil  be  lifted." 

"And  is  it  fitting,"  resumed  the  Reverend  Mr.  Clark, 
"that  a  man  so  given  to  prayer,  of  such  a  blameless  ex- 
ample, holy  in  deed  and  thought,  so  far  as  mortal  judg-    5 
ment  may  pronounce;  is  it  fitting  that  a  father  in  the 
church  should  leave  a  shadow  on  his  memory,  that  may 
seem  to  blacken  a  life  so  pure?    I  pray  you,  my  venerable 
brother,  let  not  this  thing  be!    Suffer  us  to  be  gladdened 
by  your  triumphant  aspect,  as  you  go  to  your  reward.  10 
Before  the  veil  of  eternity  be  lifted,  let  me  cast  aside  this 
black  veil  from  your  face!" 

And  thus  speaking,  the  Reverend  Mr.  Clark  bent  for- 
ward to  reveal  the  mystery  of  so  many  years.  But  exert- 
ing a  sudden  energy  that  made  all  the  beholders  stand  15 
aghast,  Father  Hooper  snatched  both  his  hands  from 
beneath  the  bed-clothes,  and  pressed  them  strongly  on 
the  black  veil,  resolute  to  struggle  if  the  minister  of  West- 
bury  would  contend  with  a  dying  man. 

"Never!"   cried   the,  veiled   clergyman.     "On   earth,  20 
never!"  ,..     . 

"Dark  old  man!"  exclaimed  the  affrighted  minister, 
"with  what  horrible  crime  upon  your  soul  are  you  now 
passing  to  the  judgment?" 

Father  Hooper's  breath  heaved;  it  rattled  in  his  throat;  25 
but,   with  a  mighty  effort,  grasping   forward  with  his 
hands,  he  caught  hold  of  life,  and  held  it  back  till  he  should 
speak.    He  even  raised  himself  in  bed;  and  there  he  sat, 
shivering  with  the  arms  of  death  around  him,  while  the 
black  veil  hung  down,  awful,  at  that  last  moment,  in  the  30 
gathered  terrors  of  a  lifetime.     And  yet  the  faint,  sad 
smile,  so  often  there,  now  seemed  to  glimmer  from  its 
obscurity,  and  linger  on  Father  Hooper's  lips. 

"Why  do  you  tremble  at  me  alone?"  cried  he,  turning 


42  Nathaniel  Hawthorne 

his  veiled  face  round  the  circle  of  pale  spectators.  "  Trem- 
ble also  at  each  other!  Have  men  avoided  me,  and  women 
shown  no  pity,  and  children  screamed  and  fled,  only  for 
my  black  veil?  What  but  the  mystery  which  it  obscurely 
5  typified  has  made  this  piece  of  crape  so  awful?  When 
the  friend  shows  his  inmost  heart  to  his  friend;  the  lover 
to  his  best  beloved;  when  man  does  not  vainly  shrink  from 
the  eye  of  his  Creator,  loathsomely  treasuring  up  the 
secret  of  his  sin;  then  deem  me  a  monster,  for  the  symbol 

10  beneath  which  I  have  lived,  and  die!  I  look  around  me, 
and,  lo!  on  every  visage  a  black  veil!" 

While  his  auditors  shrank  from  one  another  in  mutual 
affright,  Father  Hooper  fell  back  upon  his  pillow,  a  veiled 
corpse,  with  a  faint  smile  lingering  on  the  lips.  Still  veiled, 

15  they  laid  him  in  his  coffin,  and  a  veiled  corpse  they  bore 
him  to  the  grave.  The  grass  of  many  years  has  sprung 
up  and  withered  on  that  grave,  the  burial-stone  is  moss- 
grown,  and  good  Mr.  Hooper's  face  is  dust;  but  awful  is 
still  the  thought  that  it  mouldered  beneath  the  black  veil! 


ETHAN  BRAND 
By  NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE 

BARTRAM  the  lime-burner,  a  rough,  heavy-looking  man, 
begrimed  with  charcoal,  sat  watching  his  kiln,  at  nightfall, 
while  his  little  son  played  at  building  houses  with  the  scat- 
tered fragments  of  marble,  when,  on  the  hillside  below 
them,  they  heard  a  roar  of  laughter,  not  mirthful,  but  slow,  5 
and  even  solemn,  like  a  wind  shaking  the  boughs  of  the 
forest. 

"Father,  what  is  that?"  asked  the  little  boy,  leaving  his 
play,  and  pressing  betwixt  his  father's  knees. 

"O,  some  drunken  man,  I  suppose,"  answered  the  lime-  10 
burner;  "some  merry  fellow  from  the  bar-room  in  the  vil- 
lage, who  dared  not  laugh  loud  enough  within  doors  lest 
he  should  blow  the  roof  of  the  house  off.    So  here  he  is, 
shaking  his  jolly  sides  at  the  foot  of  Graylock." 

"But,  father,"  said  the  child,  more  sensitive  than  the  15 
obtuse,  middle-aged  clown,  "he  does  not  laugh  like  a  man 
that  is  glad.    So  the  noise  frightens  me!" 

"Don't  be   a  fool,   child!"   cried  his   father,   gruffly. 
"You  will  never  make  a  man,  I  do  believe;  there  is  too 
much  of  your  mother  in  you.    I  have  known  the  rustling  20 
of  a  leaf  startle  you.    Hark!    Here  comes  the  merry  fellow 
now.    You  shall  see  that  there  is  no  harm  in  him." 

Bartram  and  his  little  son,  while  they  were  talking  thus, 
sat  watching  the  same  lime-kiln  that  had  been  the  scene 
of  Ethan  Brand's  solitary  and  rn^ditative_life,  before  he  25 
began  his  search  for  the  Unpardonable  Sin.  Many  years, 
as  we  have  seen,  had  now  elapsed,  since  that  portentous 
night  when  the  IDEA  was  first  developed.  The  kiln,  how- 

43 


44  Nathaniel  Hawthorne 

ever,  on  the  mountain-side,  stood  unimpaired,  and  was  in 
nothing  changed  since  he  had  thrown  his  dark  thoughts 
into  the  intense  glow  of  its  furnace,  and  melted  them,  as  it 
were,  into  the  one  thought  that  took  possession  of  his  life. 
3  It  was  a  rude,  round,  tower-like  structure,  about  twenty 
feet  high,  heavily  built  of  rough  stones,  and  with  a  hillock 
of  earth  heaped  about  the  larger  part  of  its  circumference; 
so  that  the  blocks  and  fragments  of  marble  might  be  drawn 
by  cart-loads,  and  thrown  in  at  the  top.  There  was  an 

\o  opening  at  the  bottom  of  the  tower,  like  an  oven-mouth, 
but  large  enough  to  admit  a  man  in  a  stooping  posture,  and 
provided  with  a  massive  iron  door.  With  the  smoke  and 
jets  of  flame  issuing  from  the  chinks  and  crevices  of  this 
door,  which  seemed  to  give  admittance  into  the  hillside,  it 

15  resembled  nothing  so  much  as  the  private  entrance  to  the 
infernal  regions,  which  the  shepherds  of  the  Delectable 
Mountains  were  accustomed  to  show  to  pilgrims. 

There  are  many  such  lime-kilns  in  that  tract  of  country, 
for  the  purpose  of  burning  the  white  marble  which  com- 

20  poses  a  large  part  of  the  substance  of  the  hills.  Some  of 
them,  built  years  ago,  and  long  deserted,  with  weeds  grow- 
ing in  the  vacant  round  of  the  interior,  which  is  open  to 
the  sky,  and  grass  and  wild-flowers  rooting  themselves 
into  the  chinks  of  the  stones,  look  already  like  relics  of 

25  antiquity,  and  may  yet  be  overspread  with  the  lichens  of 
centuries  to  come.  Others,  where  the  lime-burner  still 
feeds  his  daily  and  night-long  fire,  afford  points  of  interest 
to  the  wanderer  among  the  hills,  who  seats  himself  on  a 
log  of  wood  or  a  fragment  of  marble,  to  hold  a  chat  with  the 

.30  solitary  man.  It  is  a  lonesome,  and,  when  the  character  is 
inclined  to  thought,  may  be  an  intensely  thoughtful  oc- 
cupation; as  it  proved  in  the  case  of  Ethan  Brand,  who  had 
mused  to  such  strange  purpose,  in  days  gone  by,  while  the 
fire  in  this  very  kiln  was  burning. 


Ethan  Brand  45 

The  man  who  now  watched  the  fire  was  of  a  different 
order,  and  troubled  himself  with  no  thoughts  save  the 
very  few  that  were  requisite  to  his  business.  At  frequent 
intervals,  he  flung  back  the  clashing  weight  of  the  iron  door, 
and,  turning  his  face  from  the  insufferable  glare,  thrust  in  5 
huge  logs  of  oak,  or  stirred  the  immense  brands  with  a  long 
pole.  Within  the  furnace  were  seen  the  curling  and  riotous 
flames,  and  the  burning  marble,  almost  molten  with  the 
intensity  of  heat;  while  without,  the  reflection  of  the  fire 
quivered  on  the  dark  intricacy  of  the  surrounding  forest,  10 
and  showed  in  the  foreground  a  bright  and  ruddy  little 
picture  of  the  hut,,  the  spring  beside  its  door,  the  athletic 
and  coal-begrimed  figure  of  the  lime-burner,  and  the  half- 
frightened  child,  shrinking  into  the  protection  of  his 
father's  shadow.  And  when  again  the  iron  door  was  closed,  15 
then  reappeared  the  tender  light  of  the  half -full  moon, 
which  vainly  strove  to  trace  out  the  indistinct  shapes  of  the 
neighboring  mountains;  and,  in  the  upper  sky,  there  was 
a  flitting  congregation  of  clouds,  still  faintly  tinged  with  the 
rosy  sunset,  though  thus  far  down  into  the  valley  the  sun-  20 
shine  had  vanished  long  and  long  ago. 

The  little  boy  now  crept  still  closer  to  his  father,  as  foot- 
steps were  heard  ascending  the  hillside,  and  a  human  form 
thrust  aside  the  bushes  that  clustered  beneath  the  trees. 

"Halloo!  who  is  it?"  cried  the  lime-burner,  vexed  at  25 
his  son's  timidity,  yet  half  infected  by  it.    "  Come  forward, 
and  show  yourself,  like  a  man,  or  I'll  fling  this  chunk  of 
marble  at  your  head!" 

"You  offer  me  a  rough  welcome,"  said  a  gloomy  voice, 
as  the  unknown  man  drew  nigh.    "Yet  I  neither  claim  nor  30 
desire  a  kinder  one,  even  at  my  own  fireside." 

To  obtain  a  distincter  view,  Bartram  threw  open  the 
iron  door  of  the  kiln,  whence  immediately  issued  a  gush  of 
fierce  light,  that  smote  full  upon  the  stranger's  face  and 


46  Nathaniel  Hawthorne 

figure.  To  a  careless  eye  there  appeared  nothing  very  re- 
markable in  his  aspect,  which  was  that  of  a  man  in  a  coarse, 
brown,  country-made  suit  of  clothes,  tall  and  thin,  with  the 
staff  and  heavy  shoes  of  a  wayfarer.  As  he  advanced,  he 
5  fixed  his  eyes — which  were  very  bright — intently  upon  the 
brightness  of  the  furnace,  as  if  he  beheld,  or  expected  to  be- 
hold, some  object  worthy  of  note  within  it. 

"  Good  evening,  stranger,"  said  the  lime-burner;  "whence 
come  yo^so  late  in  the  day?" 

10  "I  come  from  my  search,"  answered  the  wayfarer;  "for, 
at  last,  it  is  finished." 

"Drunk! — or  crazy!"  muttered  Bajrtram  to  himself. 
"I  shall  have  trouble  with  the  fellow.  The  sooner  I  drive 
him  away,  the  better." 

15  The  little  boy,  all  in  a  tremble,  whispered  to  his  father, 
and  begged  him  to  shut  the  door  of  the  kiln,  so  that  there 
might  not  be  so  much  light;  for  that  there  was  something 
in  the  man's  face  which  he  was  afraid  to  look  at,  yet  could 
not  look  away  from.  And,  indeed,  even  the  lime-burner's 

20  dull  and  torpid  sense  began  to  be  impressed  by  an  inde- 
scribable something  in  that  thin,  rugged,  thoughtful  visage, 
with  the  grizzled  hair  hanging  wildly  about  it,  and  those 
deeply  sunken  eyes,  which  gleamed  like  fires  within  the 
entrance  of  a  mysterious  cavern.  But,  as  he  closed  the 

25  door,  the  stranger  turned  towards  him,  and  spoke  in  a 
quiet,  familiar  way,  that  made  Bartram  feel  as  if  he  were 
a  sane  and  sensible  man,  after  all. 

"Your  task  draws  to  an  end,  I  see,"  said  he.  "This 
marble  has  already  been  burning  three  days.  A  few  hours 

30  more  will  convert  the  stone  to  lime." 

"Why,  who  are  you?"  exclaimed  the  lime-burner. 
"You  seem  as  well  acquainted  with  my  business  as  I  am 
myself." 

"And  well  I  may  be,"  said  the  stranger;  "for  I  followed 


Ethan  Brand  47 

the  same  craft  many  a  long  year,  and  here,  too,  on  this 
very  spot.  But  you  are  a  new-comer  in  these  parts.  Did 
you  never  hear  of  Ethan  Brand?" 

"The  man  that  went  in  search  of  the  Unpardonable 
Sin?"  asked  Bartram,  with  a  laugh.  5 

"The  same,"  answered  the  stranger.     "He  has  found 
what  he  sought,  and  therefore  he  comes  back  again." 

"What!  then  you  are  Ethan  Brand  himself?^'  cried  the 
lime-burner,  in  amazement.  "I  am  a  new-comer^ here,  as 
you  say,  and  they  call  it  eighteen  years  since  you  left  the  10 
foot  of  Graylock.  But,  I  can  tell  you,  the  good  folks  still 
talk  about  Ethan  Brand,  in  the  village  yonder,  and  what  a 
strange  errand  took  him  away  from  his  lime-kiln.  Well, 
and  so  you  have  found  the  Unpardonable  Sin?  " 

"Even  so!"  said  the  stranger,  calmly.  15 

"If  the  question  is  a  fair  one,"  proceeded  Bartram, 
" Where  might  it  be?" 

Ethan  Brand  laid  his  finger  on  his  own  heart. 

"Here!"  replied  he. 

And  then,  without  mirth  in  his  countenance,  but  as  if  20 
moved  by  an  involuntary  recognition  of  the  infinite  ab- 
surdity of  seeking  throughout  the  world  for  what  was  the 
closest  of  all  things  to  himself,  and  looking  into  every 
heart,  save  his  own,  for  what  was  hidden  in  no  other 
breast,  he  broke  into  a  laugh  of  scorn.    It  was  the  same  25 
slow,  heavy  laugh,  that  had  almost  appalled  the  lime- 
burner  when  it  heralded  the  wayfarer's  approach. 

The  solitary  mountain-side  was  made  dismal  by  it. 
Laughter,  when  out  of  place,  mistimed,  or  bursting  forth 
from  a  disordered  state  of  feeling,  may  be  the  most  terrible  30 
modulation  of  the  human  voice.  The  laughter  of  one 
asleep,  even  if  it  be  a  little  child, — the  madman's  laugh, — 
the  wild,  screaming  laugh  of  a  born  idiot, — are  sounds 
that  we  sometimes  tremble  to  hear,  and  would  always 


48  Nathaniel  Hawthorne 

willingly  forget.  Poets  have  imagined  no  utterance  of 
fiends  or  hobgoblins  so  fearfully  appropriate  as  a  laugh. 
And  even  the  obtuse  lime-burner  felt  his  nerves  shaken,  as 
this  strange  man  looked  inward  at  his  own  heart,  and  burst 
S  into  laughter  that  rolled  away  into  the  night,  and  was  in- 
distinctly rej,[erberatgd  among  the  hiils. 

"Joe,"  said  he  to  his  little  son,  "scamper  down  to  the 
tavern  in  the  village,  and  tell  the  jolly  fellows  there  that 
Ethan  Brand  has  come  back,  and  that  he  has  found  the 

10  Unpardonable  Sin!" 

The  boy  darted  away  on  his  errand,  to  which  Ethan 
Brand  made  no  objection,  nor  seemed  hardly  to  notice  it. 
He  sat  on  a  log  of  wood,  looking  steadfastly  at  the  iron  door 
of  the  kiln.  When  the  child  was  out  of  sight,  and  his  swift 

15  and  light  footsteps  ceased  to  be  heard  treading  first  on  the 
fallen  leaves  and  then  on  the  rocky  mountain-path,  the 
lime-burner  began  to  regret  his  departure.  He  felt  that 
the  little  fellow's  presence  had  been  a  barrier  between  his 
guest  and  himself,  and  that  he  must  now  deal,  heart  to 

20  heart,  with  a  man  who,  on  his  own  confession,  had  com- 
mitted the  one  only  crime  for  which  Heaven  could  afford 
no  mercy.  That  crime,  in  its  indistinct  blackness,  seemed 
to  overshadow  him.  The  lime-burner's  own  sins  rose  up 
within  him,  and  made  his  memory  riotous  with  a  throng  of 

25  evil  shapes  that  asserted  their  kindred  with  the  Master 
Sin,  whatever  it  might  be,  which  it  was  within  the  scope  of 
man's  corrupted  nature  to  conceive  and  cherish.  They 
were  all  of  one  family;  they  went  to  and  fro  between  his 
breast  and  Ethan  Brand's,  and  carried  dark  greetings  from 

30  one  to  the  other. 

Then  Bartram  remembered  the  stories  which  had  grown 
traditionary  in  reterence  to  this  strange  man,  who  had 
come  upon  him  like  a  shadow  of  the  night,  and  was  making 
himself  at  home  in  his  old  plaoe,  after  so  long  absence  that 


Ethan  Brand  49 

the  dead  people,  dead  and  buried  for  years,  would  have 
had  more  right  to  be  at  home,  in  any  familiar  spot,  than  he. 
Ethan  Brand,  it  was  said,  had  conversed  with  Satan  him- 
self in  the  lurkl_blaze  of  this  very  kiln.  The  legend  had 
been  matter~oT"mirth  heretofore,  but  looked  grisly  now.  5 
According  to  this  tale,  before  Ethan  Brand  departed  on 
his  search,  he  had  been  accustomed  to  evoke  a  fiend  from 
the  hot  furnace  of  the  lime-kiln,  night  after  night,  in  order 
to  confer  with  him  about  the  Unpardonable  Sin;  the  man 
and  the  fiend  each  laboring  to  frame  the  image  of  some  10 
mode  of  guUt^  which  could  neither  be  atoned  for  nor 
forgiven.  And,  with  the  first  gleam  of  light  upon  the 
mountain-top,  the  fiend  crept  in  at  the  iron  door,  there  to 
abide  the  intensest  element  of  fire,  until  again  summoned 
forth  to  share  in  the  dreadful- task  of  extending  man's  pos-  1 5 
sible  guilt  beyond  the  scope  of  Heaven's  else  infinite  mercy. 

While  the  lime-burner  was  struggling  with  the  horror 
of  these  thoughts,  Ethan  Brand  rose  from  the  log,  and 
flung  open  the  door  of  the  kiln.  The  action  was  in  such 
accordance  with  the  idea  in  Bartram's  mind,  that  he  almost  20 
expected  to  see  the  Evil  One  issue  forth,  red-hot  from  the 
raging  furnace. 

"Hold!  hold!"  cried  he,  with  a  tremulous  attempt  to 
laugh;  for  he  was  ashamed  of  his  fears,  although  they  over- 
mastered him.    "Don't,  for  mercy's  sake,  bring  out  your  25 
Devil  now!" 

"Man!"  sternly  replied  Ethan  Brand,  "what  need  have 
I  of  the  Devil?  I  have  left  him  behind  me,  on  my  track. 
It  is  with  such  half-way  sinners  as  you  that  he  busies  him- 
self. Fear  not,  because  I  open  the  door.  I  do  but  act  by  30 
old  custom,  and  am  going  to  trim  your  fire,  like  a  lime- 
burner,  as  I  was  once." 

He  stirred  the  vast  coals,  thrust  in  more  wood,  and  bent 
forward  to  gaze  into  the  hollow  prison-house  of  the  fire, 


50  Nathaniel  Hawthorne 

regardless  of  the  fierce  glow  that  reddened  upon  his  face. 
The  lime-burner  sat  watching  him,  and  half  suspected  his 
strange  guest  of  a  purpose,  if  not  to  evoke  a  fiend,  at  least 
to  plunge  bodily  into  the  flames,  and  thus  vanish  from  the 
5  sight  of  man.  Ethan  Brand,  however,  drew  quietly  back, 
and  closed  the  door  of  the  kiln. 

"I  have  looked,"  said  he,  "into  many  a  human  heart 
that  was  seven  times  hotter  with  sinful  passions  than 
yonder  furnace  is  with  fire.  But  I  found  not  there  what  I 

10  sought.    No,  not  the  Unpardonable  Sin!" 

"What  is  the  Unpardonable  Sin?"  asked  the  lime- 
burner;  and  then  he  shrank  farther  from  his  companion, 
trembling  lest  his  question  should  be  answered. 

"It  is  a  sin  that  grew  within  my  own  breast,"  replied 

15  Ethan  Brand,  standing  erect,  with  a  pride  that  distin- 
guishes all  enthusiasts  of  his  stamp.  "A  sin  that  grew 
nowhere  else!  The  sin  of  an  intellect  that  trj^imphed  over 
the  sense  of  brotherhood  with  man  and  reverence  for  God, 
and  sacrificed  everything  to  its  own  mighty  claims!  The 

20  only  sin  that  deserves  a  recompense  of  immortal  agony! 
Freely,  were  it  to  do  again,  would  I  incur  the  guilt.  Un- 
shrinkingly I  accept  the  retribution!" 

"The  man's  head  is  turned,"  muttered  the  lime-burner 
to  himself.  "He  may  be  a  sinner,  like  the  rest  of  us, — 

25  nothing  more  likely, — but,  I'll  be  sworn,  he  is  a  madman 
too." 

Nevertheless,  he  felt  uncomfortable  at  his  situation, 
alone  with  Ethan  Brand  on  the  wild  mountain-side,  and 
was  right  glad  to  hear  the  rough  murmur  of  tongues,  and 

30  the  footsteps  of  what  seemed  a  pretty  numerous  party, 
stumbling  over  the  stones  and  rustling  through  the  under- 
brush. Soon  appeared  the  whole  lazy  regiment  that  was 
wont  to  infest  the  village  tavern,  comprehending  three  or 
four  individuals  who  had  drunk  flip  beside  the  bar-room 


Ethan  Brand  51 

fire  through  all  the  winters,  and  smoked  their  pipes  be- 
neath the  stoop  through  all  the  summers,  since  Ethan 
Brand's  departure.  Laughing  boisterously,  and  mingling 
all  their  voices  together  in  unceremonious  talk,  they  now 
burst  into  the  moonshine  and  narrow  streaks  of  firelight  5 
that  illuminated  the  open  space  before  the  lime-kiln. 
Bartram  set  the  door  ajar  again,  flooding  the  spot  with 
light,  that  the  whole  company  might  get  a  fair  view  of 
Ethan  Brand,  and  he  of  them. 

There,   among  other  old  acquaintances,   was  a  once  10 
ubiquitous  man,  now  almost  extinct,  but  whom  we  were 
formerly  sure  to  encounter  at  the  hotel  of  every  thriving 
village  throughout  the  country.    It  was  the  stage-agent. 
The  present  specimen  of  the  genus  was  a  wilted  and  smoke- 
dried  man,  wrinkled  and  red-nosed,  in  a  smartly  cut,  15 
brown,  bob-tailed  coat,  with  brass  buttons,  who,  for  a 
length  of  time  unknown,  had  kept  his  desk  and  corner 
in  the  bar-room,  and  was  still  puffing  what  seemed  to  be 
the  same  cigar  that  he  had  lighted  twenty  years  before. 
He  had  great  fame  as  a  dry  joker,  though,  perhaps,  less  20 
on  account  of  any  intrinsic  humor  than  from  a  certain 
flavor  of  brandy-toddy  and  tobacco-smoke,  which  im- 
pregnated all  his  ideas  and  expressions,  as  well  as  his  per- 
son.   Another  well-remembered  though  strangely  altered 
face  was  that  of  Lawyer  Giles,  as  people  still  called  him  in  25 
Courtesy;  an  elderly  ragamuffin,  in  his  soiled  shirt-sleeves 
and  tow-cloth  trousers.     This  poor  fellow  had  been  an 
attorney,  in  what  he  called  his  better  days,  a  sharp  prac- 
titioner, and  in  great  vogue  among  the  village  jjitigants; 
but  flip,  and  sling,  and  toddy,  and  cocktails,  imbibed  at  30 
all  hours,  morning,  noon,  and  night,  had  caused  him  to 
slide  from  intellectual  to  various  kinds  and  degrees  of 
bodily  labor,  till,  at  last,  to  adopt  his  own  phrase,  he  slid 
into  a  soap-vat.    In  other  words,  Giles  was  now  a  soap- 


52  Nathaniel  Hawthorne 

boiler,  in  a  small  way.  He  had  come  to  be  but  the  frag- 
ment of  a  human  being,  a  part  of  one  foot  having  been 
chopped  off  by  an  axe,  and  an  entire  hand  torn  away  by 
the  devilish  grip  of  a  steam-engine.  Yet,  though  the  cor- 
5  poreal  hand  was  gone,  a  spiritual  member  remained;  for, 
stretching  forth  the  stump,  Giles  steadfastly  averred  that 
he  felt  an  invisible  thumb  and  fingers  with  as  vivid  a  sen- 
sation as  before  the  real  ones  were  amputated.  A  maimed 
and  miserable  wretch  he  was;  but  one,  nevertheless,  whom 

10  the  world  could  not  trample  on,  and  had  no  right  to  scorn, 
either  in  this  or  any  previous  stage  of  his  misfortunes^  since 
he  had  still  kept  up  the  courage  and  spirit  of  a  man,  asked 
nothing  in  charity,  and  with  his  one  hand — and  that  the 
left  one — fought  a  stern  battle  against  want  and  hostile 

15  circumstances. 

Among  the  throng  too,  came  another  personage,  who, 
with  certain  points  of  similarity  to  Lawyer  Giles,  had 
many  more  of  difference.  It  was  the  village  doctor;  a 
man  of  some  fifty  years,  whom,  at  an  earlier  period  of  his 

20  life,  we  introduced  as  paying  a  professional  visit  to  Ethan 
Brand  during  the  latter's  supposed  insanity.  He  was  now 
a  purple- visaged,  rude,  and  brutal,  yet  half-gentlemanly 
figure,  with  something  wild,  ruined,  and  desperate  in  his 
talk,  and  in  all  the  details  of  his  gesture  and  manners. 

25  Brandy  possessed  this  man  like  an  evil  spirit,  and  made 
him  as  surly  and  savage  as  a  wild  beast,  and  as  miserable 
as  a  lost  soul;  but  there  was  supposed  to  be  in  him  such 
wonderful  skill,  such  native  gifts  of  healing,  beyond  any 
which  medical  science  could  impart,  that  society  caught 

30  hold  of  him,  and  would  not  let  him  sink  out  of  its  reach. 
So,  swaying  to  and  fro  upon  his  horse,  and  grumbling 
thick  accents  at  the  bedside,  he  visited  all  the  sick-cham- 
bers for  miles  about  among  the  mountain  towns,  and  some- 
times raised  a  dying  man,  as  it  were,  by  miracle,  or  quite 


Ethan  Brand  53 

as  often,  no  doubt,  sent  his  patient  to  a  grave  that  was  dug 
many  a  year  too  soon.  The  doctor  had  an  everlasting  pipe 
in  his  mouth,  and,  as  somebody  said,  in  allusion  to  his 
habit  of  swearing,  it  was  always  alight  with  hell-fire. 

These   three   worthies  pressed   forward,   and  greeted    5 
Ethan  Brand  each  after  his  own  fashion,  earnestly  in- 
viting him  to  partake  of  the  contents  of  a  certain  black 
bottle,  in  which,  as  they  averred,  he  would  find  some- 
thing far  better  worth  seeking  for  than  the  Unpardonable 
Sin.    No  mind,  which  has  wrought  itself  by  intense  and  10 
solitary  meditation  into  a  high  state  of  enthusiasm,  can 
endure  the  kind  of  contact  with  low  and  vulgar  modes  of 
thought  and  feeling  to  which  Ethan  Brand  was  now  sub- 
jected.   It  made  him  doubt — and,  strange  to  say,  it  was  a 
painful  doubt — whether  he  had  indeed  found  the  Un-  15 
pardonable  Sin  and  found  it  within  himself.    The  whole 
question  on  which  he  had  exhausted  life,  and  more  than 
life,  looked  like  a  delusion. 

"Leave  me,"  he  said  bitterly,  "ye  brute  beasts,  that 
have  made  yourselves  so,  shrivelling  up  your  souls  with  20 
fiery  liquors!   I  have  done  with  you.    Years  and  years  ago, 
I  groped  into  your  hearts,  and  found  nothing  there  for  my 
purpose.    Get  ye  gone!" 

"Why,  you  uncivil  scoundrel,"  cried  the  fierce  doctor, 
"is  that  the  way  you  respond  to  the  kindness  of  your  best  25 
friends?  Then  let  me  tell  you  the  truth.  You  have  no 
more  found  the  Unpardonable  Sin  than  yonder  boy  Joe 
has.  You  are  but  a  crazy  fellow, — I  told  you  so  twenty 
years  ago, — neither  better  nor  worse  than  a  crazy  fellow, 
and  the  fit  companion  of  old  Humphrey,  here!"  .  30 

He  pointed  to  an  old  man,  shabbily  dressed,  with  long 
white  hair,  thin  visage,  and  unsteady  eyes.  For  some 
years  past  this  aged  person  had  been  wandering  about 
among  the  hills,  inquiring  of  all  travelers  whom  he  met 


54  Nathaniel  Hawthorne 

for  his  daughter.  The  girl,  it  seemed,  had  gone  off  with 
a  company  of  circus-performers;  and  occasionally  tidings 
of  her  came  to  the  village,  and  fine  stories  were  told  of 
her  glittering  appearance  as  she  rode  on  horse-back  in  the 
5  ring,  or  performed  marvellous  feats  on  the  tight-rope. 

The  white-haired  father  now  approached  Ethan  Brand, 
and  gazed  unsteadily  into  his  face. 

"They  tell  me  you  have  been  all  over  the  earth,"  said 
he,  wringing  his  hands  with  earnestness.     "You  must 

10  have  seen  my  daughter,  for  she  makes  a  grand  figure  in 
the  world,  and  everybody  goes  to  see  her.  Did  she  send 
any  word  to  her  old  father,  or  say  when  she  was  coming 
back?" 

Ethan  Brand's  eye  quailed  beneath  the  old  man's. 

15  That  daughter,  from  whom  he  so  earnestly  desired  a  word 
of  greeting,  was  the  Esther  of  our  tale,  the  very  girl  whom, 
with  such  cold  and  remorseless  purpose,  Ethan  Brand 
had  made  the  subject  of  a  psychological  experiment,  and 
wasted,  absorbed,  and  perhaps  annihilated  her  soul,  in 

20  the  process. 

"Yes,"  murmured  he,  turning  away  from  the  hoary 
wanderer;  "it  is  no  delusion.    There  is  an  Unpardonable 
Sin!" 
While  these  things  were  passing,  a  merry  scene  was  going 

25  forward  in  the  area  of  cheerful  light,  beside  the  spring 
and  before  the  door  of  the  hut.  A  number  of  the  youth  of 
the  village,  young  men  and  girls,  had  hurried  up  the  hill- 
side, impelled  by  curiosity  to  see  Ethan  Brand,  the  hero 
of  so  many  a  legend  familiar  to  their  childhood.  Finding 

30  nothing,  however,  very  remarkable  in  his  aspect, — nothing 
but  a  sunburnt  wayfarer,  in  plain  garb  and  dusty  shoes, 
who  sat  looking  into  the  fire,  as  if  he  fancied  pictures 
among  the  coals, — these  young  people  speedily  grew 
tired  of  observing  him.  As  it  happened,  there  was  other 


Ethan  Brand  55 

amusement  at  hand.  An  old  German  Jew,  traveling  with 
a  diorama  on  his  back,  was  passing  down  the  mountain- 
road  towards  the  village  just  as  the  party  turned  aside 
from  it,  and,  in  hopes  of  eking  out  the  profits  of  the  day, 
the  showman  had  kept  them  company  to  the  lime-kiln.  5 

"Come,  old  Dutchman,"  cried  one  of  the  young  men, 
"let  us  see  your  pictures,  if  you  can  swear  they  are  worth 
looking  at!" 

"O  yes,  Captain,"  answered  the  Jew, — whether  as  a 
matter  of  courtesy  or  craft,  he  styled  everybody  Captain,  10 
— "I  shall  show  you,  indeed,  some  very  superb  pictures!" 

So,  placing  his  box  in  a  proper  position,  he  invited  the 
young  men  and  girls  to  look  through  the  glass  orifices  of 
the  machine,  and  proceeded  to  exhibit  a  series  of  the  most 
outrageous  scratchings  and  daubings,  as  specimens  of  the  15 
fine  arts,  that  ever  an  itinerant  showman  had  the  face  to 
impose  upon  his  circle  of  spectators.  The  pictures  were 
worn  out,  moreover,  tattered,  full  of  cracks  and  wrinkles, 
dingy  with  tobacco-smoke,  and  otherwise  in  a  most  pitiable 
condition.  Some  purported  to  be  cities,  public  edifices,  20 
and  ruined  castles  in  Europe;  others  represented  Napo- 
leon's battles  and  Nelson's  sea-fights;  and  in  the  midst  of 
these  would  be  seen  a  gigantic,  brown,  hairy  hand, — which 
might  have  been  mistaken  for  the  Hand  of  Destiny,  though 
in  truth,  it  was  only  the  showman's, — pointing  its  fore-  25 
finger  to  various  scenes  of  the  conflict,  while  its  owner 
gave  historical  illustrations.  When,  with  much  merri- 
ment at  its  abominable  deficiency  of  merit,  the  exhibition 
was  concluded,  the  German  bade  little  Joe  put  his  head 
into  the  box.  Viewed  through  the  magnifying-glasses,  30 
the  boy's  round,  rosy  visage  assumed  the  strangest  im- 
aginable aspect  of  an  immense  Titanic  child,  the  mouth 
grinning  broadly,  and  the  eyes  and  every  other  feature 
overflowing  with  fun  at  the  joke.  Suddenly,  however, 


56  Nathaniel  Hawthorne 

that  merry  face  turned  pale,  and  its  expression  changed 
to  horror,  for  this  easily  impressed  and  excitable  child 
had  become  sensible  that  the  eye  of  Ethan  Brand  was 
fixed  upon  him  through  the  glass. 

5  "You  make  the  little  man  to  be  afraid,  Captain,"  said 
the  German  Jew,  turning  up  the  dark  and  strong  outline 
of  his  visage,  from  his  stooping  posture.  "  But  look  again, 
and,  by  chance,  I  shall  cause  you  to  see  somewhat  that  is 
very  fine,  upon  my  word!" 

10  Ethan  Brand  gazed  into  the  box  for  an  instant,  and 
then  starting  back,  looked  fixedly  at  the  German.  What 
had  he  seen?  Nothing,  apparently;  for  a  curious  youth, 
who  had  peeped  in  almost  at  the  same  moment,  beheld 
only  a  vacant  space  of  canvas. 

15  "I  remember  you  now,"  muttered  Ethan  Brand  to  the 
showman. 

"Ah,  Captain,"  whispered  the  Jew  of  Nuremberg,  with 
a  dark  smile,  "  I  find  it  to  be  a  heavy  matter  in  my  show- 
box, — this  Unpardonable  Sin!  By  my  faith,  Captain,  it 

20  has  wearied  my  shoulders,  this  long  day,  to  carry  it  over 
the  mountain." 

"Peace,"  answered  Ethan  Brand,  sternly,  "or  get  thee 
into  the  furnace  yonder!" 

The  Jew's  exhibition  had  scarcely  concluded,  when  a 

25  great,  elderly  dog — who  seemed  to  be  his  own  master,  as 
no  person  in  the  company  laid  claim  to  him — saw  fit  to 
render  himself  the  object  of  public  notice.  Hitherto,  he 
had  shown  himself  a  very  quiet,  well-disposed  old  dog, 
going  round  from  one  to  another,  and  by  way  of  being 

30  sociable,  offering  his  rough  head  to  be  patted  by  any 
kindly  hand  that  would  take  so  much  trouble.  But  now, 
all  of  a  sudden,  this  grave  and  venerable  quadruped  of  his 
own  mere  motion,  and  without  the  slightest  suggestion 
from  anybody  else,  began  to  run  round  after  his  tail,  which, 


Ethan  Brand  57 

to  heighten  the  absurdity  of  the  proceeding,  was  a  great 
deal  shorter  than  it  should  have  been.  Never  was  seen 
such  headlong  eagerness  in  pursuit  of  an  object  that  could 
not  possibly  be  attained;  never  was  heard  such  a  tremen- 
dous outbreak  of  growling,  snarling,  barking,  and  snapping,  5 
— as  if  one  end  of  the  ridiculous  brute's  body  were  at 
deadly  and  most  unforgivable  enmity  with  the  other. 
Faster  and  faster,  round  about  went  the  cur;  and  faster 
and  still  faster  fled  the  unapproachable  brevity  of  his 
tail;  and  louder  and  fiercer  grew  his  yells  of  rage  and  10 
animosity;  until,  utterly  exhausted,  and  as  far  from  the 
goal  as  ever,  the  foolish  old  dog  ceased  his  performance 
as  suddenly  as  he  had  begun  it.  The  next  moment  he  was 
as  mild,  quiet,  sensible,  and  respectable  in  his  deportment, 
as  when  he  first  scraped  acquaintance  with  the  company.  15 

As  may  be  supposed,  the  exhibition  was  greeted  with 
universal  laughter,  clapping  of  hands,  and  shouts  of  en- 
core, to  which  the  canine  performer  responded  by  wagging 
all  that  there  was  to  wag  of  his  tail,  but  appeared  totally 
unable  to  repeat  his  very  successful  effort  to  amuse  the  20 
spectators. 

Meanwhile,  Ethan  Brand  had  resumed  his  seat  upon 
the  log,  and  moved,  it  might  be,  by  a  perception  of  some 
remote  analogy  between  his  own  case  and  that  of  this 
self-pursuing  cur,  he  broke  into  the  awful  laugh,  which,  25 
more  than  any  other  token,  expressed  the  condition  ef 
his  inward  being.  From  that  moment,  the  merriment  of 
the  party  was  at  an  end;  they  stood  aghast,  dreading  lest 
the  inauspicious  sound  should  be  reverberated  around 
the  horizon,  and  that  mountain  would  thunder  it  to  moun-  30 
tain,  and  so  the  horror  be  prolonged  upon  their  ears. 
Then,  whispering  one  to  another  that  it  was  late, — that 
the  moon  was  almost  down, — that  the  August  night  was 
growing  chill,— they  hurried  homewards,  leaving  the 


58  Nathaniel  Hawthorne 

lime-burner  and  little  Joe  to  deal  as  they  might  with  their 
unwelcome  guest.  Save  for  these  three  human  beings, 
the  open  space  on  the  hillside  was  a  solitude,  set  in  a  vast 
gloom  of  forest.  Beyond  that  darksome  verge,  the  fire- 

5  light  glimmered  on  the  stately  trunks  and  almost  black 
foliage  of  pines,  intermixed  with  the  lighter  verdure  of 
sapling  oaks,  maples,  and  poplars,  while  here  and  there 
lay  the  gigantic  corpses  of  dead  trees,  decaying  on  the 
leaf-strewn  soil.  And  it  seemed  to  little  Joe — a  timorous 

10  and  imaginative  child — that  the  silent  forest  was  holding 
its  breath,  until  some  fearful  thing  should  happen. 

Ethan  Brand  thrust  more  wood  into  the  fire,  and  closed 
the  door  of  the  kiln;  then  looking  over  his  shoulder  at  the 
lime-burner  and  his  son,  he  bade,  rather  than  advised, 

15  them  to  retire  to  rest. 

"For  myself,  I  cannot  sleep,"  said  he.  "I  have  matters 
that  it  concerns  me  to  meditate  upon.  I  will  watch  the 
fire,  as  I  used  to  do  in  the  old  time." 

"And  call  the  Devil  out  of  the  furnace  to  keep  you  com- 

20  pany,  I  suppose,"  muttered  Bartram,  who  had  been  mak- 
ing intimate  acquaintance  with  the  black  bottle  above 
mentioned.  "But  watch,  if  you  like,  and  call  as  many 
devils  as  you  like!  For  my  part,  I  shall  be  all  the  better 
for  a  snooze.  Come,  Joe!" 

25  As  the  boy  followed  his  father  into  the  hut,  he  looked 
back  at  the  wayfarer,  and  the  tears  came  into  his  eyes, 
for  his  tender  spirit  had  an  intuition  of  the  bleak  and 
terrible  loneliness  in  which  this  man  had  enveloped  him- 
self. 

30  When  they  had  gone,  Ethan  Brand  sat  listening  to  the 
crackling  of  the  kindled  wood,  and  looking  at  the  little 
spirts  of  fire  that  issued  through  the  chinks  of  the  door. 
These  trifles,  however,  once  so  familiar,  had  but  the  slight- 
est hold  of  his  attention,  while  deep  within  his  mind  he 


Ethan  Brand  59 

was  reviewing  the  gradual  but  marvellous  change  that 
had  been  wrought  upon  him  by  the  search  to  which  he  had 
devoted  himself.  He  remembered  how  the  night  dew  had 
fallen  upon  him, — how  the  dark  forest  had  whispered  to 
him, — how  the  stars  had  gleamed  upon  him, — a  simple  and  5 
loving  man,  watching  his  fire  in  the  years  gone  by,  and 
ever  musing  as  it  burned.  H  remembered  with  what 
tenderness,  with  wiiat  love  and  sympathy  for  mankind, 
and  what  pity  for  human  guilt  and  woe,  he  had  first  begun 
to  contemplate  those  ideas  which  afterwards  became  the  10 
inspiration  of  his  life;  with  what  reverence  he  had  then 
looked  into  the  heart  of  man,  viewing  it  as  a  temple  orig- 
inally divine,  and,  however  desecrated,  still  to  be  held 
sacred  by  a  brother;  with  what  awful  fear  he  had  depre- 
cated the  success  of  his  pursuit,  and  prayed  that  the  Un-  15 
pardonable  Sin  might  never  be  revealed  to  him.  Then  en- 
sued that  vast  intellectual  development,  which,  in  its 
progress,  disturbed  the  counterpoise  between  his  mind  and 
heart.  The  Idea  that  possessed  his  life  had  operated  as  a 
means  of  education;  it  had  gone  on  cultivating  his  powers  20 
to  the  highest  point  of  which  they  were  susceptible ;  it  had 
raised  him  from  the  level  of  an  unlettered  laborer  to  stand 
on  a  star-lit  eminence,  whither  the  philosophers  of  the 
earth,  laden  with  the  lore  of  universities,  might  vainly 
strive  to  clamber  after  him.  So  much  for  the  intellect!  25 
But  where  was  the  heart?  That,  indeed,  had  withered, — 
had  contracted, — had  hardened, — had  perished!  It  ha"d 
ceased  to  partake  of  the  universal  throb.  He  had  lost  his 
hold  of  the  magnetic  chain  of  humanity.  He  was  no  longer 
a  brother-man,  opening  the  chambers  of  the  dungeons  of  30 
our  common  nature  by  the  key  of  holy  sympathy,  which 
gave  him  a  right  to  share  in  all  its  secrets;  he  was  now  a  cold 
observer,  looking  on  mankind  as  the  subject  of  his  experi- 
ment, and,  at  length,  converting  man  and  woman  to  be  his 


6o  Nathaniel  Hawthorne 

puppets,  and  pulling  the  wires  that  moved  them  to  such 
degrees  of  crime  as  were  demanded  for  his  study. 

Thus  Ethan  Brand  became  a  fiend.  He  began  to  be  so 
from  the  moment  that  his  moral  nature  had  ceased  to  keep 
5  the  pace  of  improvement  with  his  intellect.  And  now,  as 
his  highest  effort  and  inevitable  development, — as  the 
bright  and  gorgeous  flower,  and  rich,  delicious  fruit  of  his 
life's  labor, — he  had  produced  the  Unpardonable  Sin! 

"What  more  have  I  to  seek?  what  more  to  achieve?" 
10  said  Ethan  Brand  to  himself.  "My  task  is  done,  and  well 
done!" 

Starting  from  the  log  with  a  certain  alacrity  in  his  gait 

and  ascending  the  hillock  of  earth  that  was  raised  against 

the  stone  circumference  of  the  lime-kiln,  he  thus  reached 

15  the  top  of  the  structure.    It  was  a  space  of  perhaps  ten 

feet  across,  from  edge  to  edge,  presenting  a  view  of  the 

upper  surface  of  the  immense  mass  of  broken  marble  with 

which  the  kiln  was  heaped.    All  these  innumerable  blocks 

and  fragments  of  marble  were  red-hot  and  vividly  on  fire, 

20  sending  up  great  spouts  of  blue  flame,  which  quivered 

aloft  and  danced  madly,  as  within  a  magic  circle,  and  sank 

and  rose  again,  with  continual  and  multitudinous  activity. 

As  the  lonely  man  bent  forward  over  this  terrible  body  of 

fire,  the  blasting  heat  smote  up  against  his  person  with  a 

25  breath  that,  it  might  be  supposed,  would  have  scorched 

and  shrivelled  him  up  in  a  moment. 

Ethan  Brand  stood  erect,  and  raised  his  arms  on  high. 

The  blue  flames  played  upon  his  face,  and  imparted  the 

wild  and  ghastly  light  which  alone  could  have  suited  its 

30  expression;  it  was  that  of  a  fiend  on  the  verge  of  plunging 

into  his  gulf  of  intensest  torment. 

"O  Mother  Earth,"  cried  he,  "who  art  no  more  my 
Mother,  and  into  whose  bosom  this  frame  shall  never  be 
resolved!  O  mankind,  whose  brotherhood  I  have  cast  off, 


Ethan  Brand  6l 

and  trampled  thy  great  heart  beneath  my  feet!  O  stars  of 
heaven,  that  shone  on  me  of  old,  as  if  to  light  me  onward 
and  upward! — farewell  all,  and  forever.  Come,  deadly 
element  of  Fire, — henceforth  my  familiar  frame !  Embrace 
me,  as  I  do  thee!"  5 

That  night  the  sound  of  a  fearful  peal  of  laughter  rolled 
heavily  through  the  sleep  of  the  lime-burner  and  his  little 
son;  dim  shapes  of  horror  and  anguish  haunted  their 
dreams,  and  seemed  still  present  in  the  rude  hovel,  when 
they  opened  their  eyes  to  the  daylight.  10 

"Up,  boy,  up!"  cried  the  lime-burner,  staring  about 
him.  "Thank  Heaven,  the  night  is  gone,  at  last;  and 
rather  than  pass  such  another,  I  would  watch  my  lime- 
kiln, wide  awake,  for  a  twelvemonth.  This  Ethan  Brand, 
with  his  humbug  of  an  Unpardonable  Sin,  has  done  me  no  15 
such  mighty  favor,  in  taking  my  place!" 

He  issued  from  the  hut,  followed  by  little  Joe,  who  kept 
fast  hold  of  his  father's  hand.  The  early  sunshine  was  al- 
ready pouring  its  gold  upon  the  mountain- tops;  and  though 
the  valleys  were  still  in  shadow,  they  smiled  cheerfully  in  20 
the  promise  of  the  bright  day  that  was  hastening  onward. 
The  village,  completely  shut  in  by  hills,  which  swelled 
away  gently  about  it,  looked  as  if  it  had  rested  peacefully 
in  the  hollow  of  the  great  hand  of  Providence.  Every 
dwelling  was  distinctly  visible;  the  little  spires  of  the  two  25 
churches  pointed  upwards,  and  caught  a  fore-glimmering 
of  brightness  from  the  sun-gilt  skies  upon  their  gilded 
weathercocks.  The  tavern  was  astir,  and  the  figure  of  the 
old,  smoke-dried  stage-agent,  cigar  in  mouth,  was  seen  be- 
neath the  stoop.  Old  Gray  lock  was  glorified  with  a  golden  30 
cloud  upon  his  head.  Scattered  likewise  over  the  breasts 
of  the  surrounding  mountains,  there  were  heaps  of  hoary 
mist,  in  fantastic  shapes,  some  of  them  far  down  into  the 
valley,  others  high  up  towards  the  summits,  and  still  others, 


62  Nathaniel  Hawthorne 

of  the  same  family  of  mist  or  cloud,  hovering  in  the  gold 
radiance  of  the  upper  atmosphere.  Stepping  from  one  to 
another  of  the  clouds  that  rested  on  the  hills,  and  thence 
to  the  loftier  brotherhood  that  sailed  in  air,  it  seemed  al- 
5  most  as  if  a  mortal  man  might  thus  ascend  into  the  heav- 
enly regions.  \  Earth  was  so  mingled  with  sky  that  it  was 
a  day-dream  to  look  at  it.  \ 

To  supply  that  charm  of  the  familiar  and  homely,  which 
Nature  so  readily  adopts  into  a  scene  like  this,  the  stage- 

10  coach  was  rattling  down  the  mountain-road,  and  the  driver 
sounded  his  horn,  while  echo  caught  up  the  notes,  and 
intertwined  them  into  a  rich  and  varied  and  elaborate 
harmony,  of  which  the  original  performer  could  lay  claim  to 
little  share.  The  great  hills  played  a  concert  among  them- 

15  selves,  each  contributing  a  strain  of  airy  sweetness. 
Little  Joe's  face  brightened  at  once. 
"Dear  father,"  cried  he,  skipping  cheerily  to  and  fro, 
"  that  strange  man  is  gone,  and  the  sky  and  the  mountains 
all  seem  glad  of  it!" 

20  "  Yes,"  growled  the  lime-burner,  with  an  oath,  "but  he 
has  let  the  fire  go  down,  and  no  thanks  to  him  if  five  hun- 
dred bushels  of  lime  are  not  spoiled.  If  I  catch  the  fellow 
hereabouts  again,  I  shall  feel  like  tossing  him  into  the 
furnace!" 

25      With  his  long  pole  in  his  hand,  he  ascended  to  the  top  of 
the  kiln.    After  a  moment's  pause,  he  called  to  his  son. 
"Come  up  here,  Joe!"  said  he. 

So  little  Joe  ran  up  the  hillock,  and  stood  by  his  father's 
side.    The  marble  was  all  burnt  into  perfect,  snow-white 

30  lime.  But  on  its  surface,  in  the  midst  of  the  circle, — snow- 
white  too,  and  thoroughly  converted  into  lime, — lay  a 
human  skeleton,  in  the  attitude  of  a  person  who,  after 
long  toil,  lies  down  to  long  repose.  Within  the.  ribs — 
strange  to  say — was  the  shape  of  a  human  heart. 


Ethan  Brand  63 

"Was  the  fellow's  heart  made  of  marble?"  cried  Bar- 
tram,  in  some  perplexity  at  this  phenomenon.  "At  any 
rate,  it  is  burnt  into  what  looks  like  special  good  lime;  and, 
taking  all  the  bones  together,  my  kiln  is  half  a  bushel  the 
richer  for  him." 

So  saying,  the  rude  lime-burner  lifted  his  pole,  and, 
letting  it  fall  upon  the  skeleton,  the  relics  of  Ethan  Brand 
were  crumbled  into  fragments. 


THE  FALL  OF  THE  HOUSE  OF  USHER 

By  E.  A.  POE 

Son  coeur  est  un  luth  suspendu; 
Sitot  qu'on  le  touche  il  resonne. 

Beranger. 

DURING  the  whole  of  a  dull,  dark,  and  soundless  day  in 
the  autumn  of  the  year,  when  the  clouds  hung  oppressively 
low  in  the  heavens,  I  had  been  passing  alone,  on  horseback, 
through  a  singularly  dreary  tract  of  country;  and  at  length 

5  found  myself,  as  the  shades  of  the  evening  drew  on,  within 
view  of  the  melancholy  House  of  Usher.  I  know  not  how 
it  was — but,  with  the  first  glimpse  of  the  building,  a  sense 
of  insufferable  gloom  pervaded  my  spirit.  I  say  insuffer- 
able; for  the  feeling  was  unrelieved  by  any  of  that  half- 

10  pleasurable,  because  poetic,  sentiment  with  which  the 
mind  usually  receives  even  the  sternest  natural  images  of 
the  desolate  or  terrible.  I  looked  upon  the  scene  before 
me — upon  the  mere  house,  and  the  simple  landscape  fea- 
tures of  the  domain,  upon  the  bleak  walls,  upon  the  vacant 

15  eye-like  windows,  upon  a  few  rank  sedges,  and  upon  a  few 
white  trunks  of  decayed  trees — with  an  utter  depression  of 
soul  which  I  can  compare  to  no  earthly  sensation  more 
properly  than  to  the  after-dream  of  the  reveler  upon  opium; 
the  bitter  lapse  into  every-day  life,  the  hideous  dropping 

20  off  of  the  veil.  There  was  an  iciness,  a  sinking,  a  sickening 
of  the  heart,  an  unredeemed  dreariness  of  thought  which 
no  goading  of  the  imagination  could  torture  into  aught  of 
the  sublime.  What  was  it — I  paused  to  think — what  was 
it  that  so  unnerved  me  in  the  contemplation  of  the  House 

64 


The  Fall  of  the  House  of  Usher  65 

of  Usher?  It  was  a  mystery  all  insoluble;  nor  could  I 
grapple  with  the  shadowy  fancies  that  crowded  upon  me 
as  i  pondered.  I  was  forced  to  fall  back  upon  the  unsatis- 
factory conclusion,  that  while,  beyond  doubt,  there  are 
combinations  of  very  simple  natural  objects  which  have  5 
the  power  of  thus  affecting  us  still  the  analysis  of  this  power 
lies  among  considerations  beyond  our  depth.  It  was  pos- 
sible, I  reflected,  that  a  mere  different  arrangement  of  the 
particulars  of  the  scene,  of  the  details  of  the  picture,  would 
be  sufficient  to  modify,  or  perhaps  to  annihilate,  its  capac-  10 
ity  for  sorrowful  impression;  and  acting  upon  this  idea,  I 
reined  my  horse  to  the  precipitous  brink  of  a  black  and 
lurid  tarn  that  lay  in  unruffled  luster  by  the  dwelling,  and 
gazed  down — but  with  a  shudder  even  more  thrilling  than 
before — upon  the  remodeled  and  inverted  images  of  the  15 
gray  sedge,  and  the  ghastly  tree-stems,  and  the  vacant 
and  eye-like  windows. 

Nevertheless,  in  this  mansion  of  gloom  I  now  proposed 
to  myself  a  sojourn  of  some  weeks.  Its  proprietor,  Roder- 
ick Usher,  had  been  one  of  my  boon  companions  in  boy-  20 
hood;  but  many  years  had  elapsed  since  our  last  meeting. 
A  letter,  however,  had  lately  reached  me  in  a  distant  part 
>i  the  country — a  letter  from  him — which  in  its  wildly  im- 
portunate nature  had  admitted  of  no  other  than  a  personal 
reply.  The  MS.  gave  evidence  of  nervous  agitation.  The  25 
writer  spoke  of  acute  bodily  illness,  of  a  mental  disorder 
which  oppressed  him,  and  of  an  earnest  desire  to  see  me,  as 
his  best  and  indeed  his  only  personal  friend,  with  a  view 
of  attempting,  by  the  cheerfulness  of  my  society,  some 
alleviation  of  his  malady.  It  was  the  manner  in  which  all  30 
this,  and  much  more,  was  said — it  was  the  apparent  heart 
that  went  with  his  request — which  allowed  me  no  room  for 
hesitation;  and  I  accordingly  obeyed  forthwith  what  I  still 
considered  a  very  singular  summons. 


66  Edgar  Allan  Poe 

Although  as  boys  we  had  been  even  intimate  associates, 
yet  I  really  knew  little  of  my  friend.  His  reserve  had  been 
always  excessive  and  habitual.  I  was  aware,  however, 
that  his  very  ancient  family  had  been  noted,  time  out  of 
5  mind,  for  a  peculiar  sensibility  of  temperament,  displaying 
itself,  through  long  ages,  in  many  works  of  exalted  art,  and 
manifested  of  late  in  repeated  deeds  of  munificent  yet  un- 
obtrusive charity,  as  well  as  in  a  passionate  devotion  to 
the  intricacies,  perhaps  even  more  than  to  the  orthodox 

10  and  easily  recognizable  beauties,  of  musical  science.  I  had 
learned,  too,  the  very  remarkable  fact  that  the  stem  of 
the  Usher  race,  all  time-honored  as  it  was,  had  put  forth 
at  no  period  any  enduring  branch;  in  other  words,  that  the 
entire  family  lay  in  the  direct  line  of  descent,  and  had  al- 

15  ways,  with  very  trifling  and  very  temporary  variation,  so 
lain.  It  was  this  deficiency,  I  considered,  while  running 
over  in  thought  the  perfect  keeping  of  the  character  of  the 
premises  with  the  accredited  character  of  the  people,  and 
while  speculating  upon  the  possible  influence  which  the  one, 

20  in  the  long  lapse  of  centuries,  might  have  exercised  upon 
the  other — it  was  this  deficiency,  perhaps,  of  collateral 
issue,  and  the  consequent  undeviating  transmission  from 
sire  to  son  of  the  patrimony  with  the  name,  which  had,  at 
length,  so  identified  the  two  as  to  merge  the  original  title 

25  of  the  estate  in  the  quaint  and  equivocal  appellation  of 
the  " House  of  Usher"— an  appellation  which  seemed  to 
include,  in  the  minds  of  the  peasantry  who  used  it,  both 
the  family  and  the  family  mansion. 

I  have  said  that  the  sole  effect  of  my  somewhat  childish 

30  experiment,  that  of  looking  down  within  the  tarn,  had 
been  to  deepen  the  first  singular  impression.  There  can  be 
no  doubt  that  the  consciousness  of  the  rapid  increase  of 
my  superstition — for  why  should  I  not  so  term  it? — served 
mainly  to  accelerate  the  increase  itself.  Such,  I  have  long 


The  Fall  of  the  House  of  Usher  67 

known,  is  the  paradoxical  law  of  all  sentiments  having 
terror  as  a  basis.  And  it  might  have  been  for  this  reason 
only,  that,  when  I  again  uplifted  my  eyes  to  the  house 
itself,  from  its  image  in  the  pool,  there  grew  in  my  mind 
a  strange  fancy — a  fancy  so  ridiculous,  indeed,  that  I  but  5 
mention  it  to  show  the  vivid  force  of  the  sensations  which 
oppressed  me.  I  had  so  worked  upon  my  imagination  as 
really  to  believe  that  about  the  whole  mansion  and  domain 
there  hung  an  atmosphere  peculiar  to  themselves  and  their 
immediate  vicinity:  an  atmosphere  which  had  no  affinity  10 
with  the  air  of  heaven,  but  which  had  reeked  up  from  the 
decayed  trees,  and  the  gray  wall,  and  the  silent  tarn:  a 
pestilent  and  mystic  vapor,  dull,  sluggish,  faintly  discern- 
ible, and  leaden-hued. 

Shaking  off  from  my  spirit  what  must  have  been  a  dream,  15 
I  scanned  more  narrowly  the  real  aspect  of  the  building. 
Its  principal  feature  seemed  to  be  that  of  an  excessive  an- 
tiquity.  The  discoloration  of  ages  had  been  great.    Minute 
fungi  overspread  the  whole  exterior,  hanging  in  a  fine 
tangled  web-work  from  the  eaves.    Yet  all  this  was  apart  20 
from  any  extraordinary  dilapidation.    No  portion  of  the 
masonry  had  fallen;  and  there  appeared  to  be  a  wild  in- 
consistency between  its  still  perfect  adaptation  of  parts  and 
the  crumbling  condition  of  the  individual  stones.    In  this 
there  was  much  that  reminded  me  of  the  specious  totality  25 
of  old  wood-work  which  has  rotted  for  long  years  in  some 
neglected  vault,  with  no  disturbance  from  the  breath  of  the 
external  air.     Beyond  this  indication  of  extensive  decay, 
however,  the  fabric  gave  little  token  of  instability.  Perhaps 
the  eye  of  a  scrutinizing  observer  might  have  discovered  a  30 
barely  perceptible  fissure,  which,  extending  from  the  roof 
of  the  building  in  front,  made  its  way  down  the  wall  in  a 
zig-zag  direction,  until  it  became  lost  in  the  sullen  waters 
of  the  tarn. 


68  Edgar  Allan  Poe 

Noticing  these  things,  I  rode  over  a  short  causeway  to 
the  house.  A  servant  in  waiting  took  my  horse,  and  I  en- 
tered the  Gothic  archway  of  the  hall.  A  valet,  of  stealthy 
step,  thence  conducted  me,  in  silence,  through  many  dark 
5  and  intricate  passages  in  my  progress  to  the  studio  of  his 
master.  Much  that  I  encountered  on  the  way  contributed, 
I  know  not  how,  to  heighten  the  vague  sentiments  of  which 
I  have  already  spoken.  While  the  objects  around  me — 
while  the  carvings  of  the  ceilings,  the  somber  tapestries 

10  of  the  walls,  the  ebon  blackness  of  the  floors,  and  the 
phantasmagoric  armorial  trophies  which  rattled  as  I 
strode,  were  but  matters  to  which,  or  to  such  as  which,  I 
had  been  accustomed  from  my  infancy — while  I  hesitated 
not  to  acknowledge  how  familiar  was  all  this — I  still  won- 

15  dered  to  find  how  unfamiliar  were  the  fancies  which  or- 
dinary images  were  stirring  up.  On  one  of  the  staircases, 
I  met  the  physician  of  the  family.  His  countenance,  I 
thought,  wore  a  mingled  expression  of  low  cunning  and 
perplexity.  He  accosted  me  with  trepidation  and  passed 

20  on.  The  valet  now  threw  open  a  door  and  ushered  me 
into  the  presence  of  his  master. 

The  room  in  which  I  found  myself  was  very  large  and 
lofty.  The  windows  were  long,  narrow,  and  pointed,  and 
at  so  vast  a  distance  from  the  black  oaken  floor  as  to  be 

25  altogether  inaccessible  from  within.  Feeble  gleams  of 
encrimsoned  light  made  their  way  through  the  trellised 
panes,  and  served  to  render  sufficiently  distinct  the  more 
prominent  objects  around;  the  eye,  however,  struggled  in 
vain  to  reach  the  remoter  angles  of  the  chamber,  or  the 

30  recesses  of  the  vaulted  and  fretted  ceiling.  Dark  draperies 
hung  upon  the  walls.  The  general  furniture  was  profuse, 
comfortless,  antique>  and  tattered.  Many  books  and 
musical  instruments  lay  scattered  about,  but  failed  to  give 
any  vitality  to  the  scene.  I  felt  that  I  breathed  an  atmos- 


The  Fall  of  the  House  of  Usher  69 

phere  of  sorrow.    An  air  of  stern,  deep,  and  irredeemable 
gloom  hung  over  and  pervaded  all. 

Upon  my  entrance,  Usher  arose  from  a  sofa  on  which 
he  had  been  lying  at  full  length,  and  greeted  me  with  a 
vivacious  warmth  which  had  much  in  it,  I  at  first  thought,  5 
of  an  overdone  cordiality — of  the  constrained  effort  of 
the  ennuye  man  of  the  world.  A  glance,  however,  at  his 
countenance,  convinced  me  of  his  perfect  sincerity.  We 
sat  down,  and  for  some  moments,  while  he  spoke  not,  I 
gazed  upon  him  with  a  feeling  half  of  pity,  half  of  awe.  10 
Surely  man  had  never  before  so  terribly  altered,  in  so 
brief  a  period,  as  had  Roderick  Usher!  It  was  with  diffi- 
culty that  I  could  bring  myself  to  admit  the  identity  of  the 
wan  being  before  me  with  the  companion  of  my  early 
boyhood.  Yet  the  character  of  his  face  had  been  at  all  15 
times  remarkable.  A  cadaverousness  of  complexion;  an 
eye  large,  liquid,  and  luminous  beyond  comparison;  lips 
somewhat  thin  and  very  pallid,  but  of  a  surpassingly 
beautiful  curve;  a  nose  of  a  delicate  Hebrew  model,  but 
with  a  breadth  of  nostril  unusual  in  similar  formations;  a  20 
finely  moulded  chin,  speaking,  in  its  want  of  prominence, 
of  a  want  of  moral  energy;  hair  of  a  more  than  web-like 
softness  and  tenuity;  these  features,  with  an  inordinate 
expansion  above  the  regions  of  the  temple,  made  up  al- 
together a  countenance  not  easily  to  be  forgotten.  And  25 
now  in  the  mere  exaggeration  of  the  prevailing  character 
of  these  features,  and  of  the  expression  they  were  wont 
to  convey,  lay  so  much  of  change  that  I  doubted  to  whom 
I  spoke.  The  now  ghastly  pallor  of  the  skin,  and  the  now 
miraculous  luster  of  the  eye,  above  all  things  startled  and  30 
even  awed  me.  The  silken  hair,  too,  had  been  suffered  to 
grow  all  unheeded,  and  as,  in  its  wild  gossamer  texture, 
it  floated  rather  than  fell  about  the  face,  I  could  not,  even 
with  effort,  connect  its  arabesque  expression  with  any  idea 
of  simple  humanity. 


70  Edgar  Allan  Poe 

In  the  manner  of  my  friend  I  was  at  once  struck  with 
an  incoherence,  an  inconsistency;  and  I  soon  found  this 
to  arise  from  a  series  of  feeble  and  futile  struggles  to  over- 
come an  habitual  trepidancy,  an  excessive  nervous  agita- 
5  tion.  For  something  of  this  nature  I  had  indeed  been 
prepared,  no  less  by  his  letter  than  by  reminiscences  of 
certain  boyish  traits,  and  by  conclusions  deduced  from 
his  peculiar  physical  conformation  and  temperament. 
His  action  was  alternately  vivacious  and  sullen.  His  voice 

10  varied  rapidly  from  a  tremulous  indecision  (when  the  ani- 
mal spirits  seemed  utterly  in  abeyance)  to  that  species  of 
energetic  concision — that  abrupt,  weighty,  unhurried,  and 
hollow-sounding  enunciation — that  leaden,  self-balanced 
and  perfectly  modulated  guttural  utterance — which  may 

15  be  observed  in  the  lost  drunkard,  or  the  irreclaimable 
eater  of  opium,  during  the  periods  of  his  most  intense  ex- 
citement. 

It  was  thus  that  he  spoke  of  the  object  of  my  visit,  of 
his  earnest  desire  to  see  me,  and  of  the  solace  he  expected 

20  me  to  afford  him.  He  entered,  at  some  length,  into  what 
he  conceived  to  be  the  nature  of  his  malady.  It  was,  he 
said,  a  constitutional  and  a  family  evil,  and  one  for  which 
he  despaired  to  find  a  remedy — a  mere  nervous  affection, 
he  immediately  added,  which  would  undoubtedly  soon 

25  pass  off.  It  displayed  itself  in  a  host  of  unnatural  sensa- 
tions. Some  of  these,  as  he  detailed  them,  interested  and 
bewildered  me;  although,  perhaps,  the  terms  and  the 
general  manner  of  the  narration  had  their  weight.  He 
suffered  much  from  a  morbid  acuteness  of  the  senses;  the 

30  most  insipid  food  was  alone  endurable;  he  could  wear  only 
garments  of  certain  texture;  the  odors  of  all  flowers  were 
oppressive;  his  eyes  were  tortured  by  even  a  faint  light; 
and  there  were  but  peculiar  sounds,  and  these  from  stringed 
instruments,  which  did  not  inspire  him  with  horror. 


The  Fall  of  the  House  of  Usher  71 

To  an  anomalous  species  of  terror  I  found  him  a  bounden 
slave.  "I  shall  perish,"  said  he,  "I  must  perish  in  this 
deplorable  folly.  Thus,  thus,  and  not  otherwise,  shall  I  be 
lost.  I  dread  the  events  of  the  future,  not  in  themselves, 
but  in  their  results.  I  shudder  at  the  thought  of  any,  5 
even  the  most  trivial,  incident,  which  may  operate  upon 
this  intolerable  agitation  of  soul.  I  have,  indeed,  no  ab- 
horrence of  danger,  except  in  its  absolute  effect — in  terror. 
In  this  unnerved — in  this  pitiable  condition,  I  feel  that 
the  period  will  sooner  or  later  arrive  when  I  must  abandon  10 
life  and  reason  together,  in  some  struggle  with  the  grim 
phantasm,  FEAR." 

I  learned  moreover  at  intervals,  and  through  broken 
and  equivocal  hints,  another  singular  feature  of  his  mental 
condition.  He  was  enchained  by  certain  superstitious  15 
impressions  in  regard  to  the  dwelling  which  he  tenanted, 
and  whence,  for  many  years,  he  had  never  ventured  forth — 
in  regard  to  an  influence  whose  supposititious  force  was 
conveyed  in  terms  too  shadowy  here  to  be  restated — an 
influence  which  some  peculiarities  in  the  mere  form  and  20 
substance  of  his  family  mansion,  had,  by  dint  of  long 
sufferance,  he  said,  obtained  over  his  spirit — an  effect 
which  the  physique  of  the  gray  walls  and  turrets,  and  of 
the  dim  tarn  into  which  they  all  looked  down,  had,  at 
length,  brought  about  upon  the  morale  of  his  existence.  25 

He  admitted,  however,  although  with  hesitation,  that 
much  of  the  peculiar  gloom  which  thus  afflicted  him  could 
be  traced  to  a  more  natural  and  far  more  palpable  origin — 
to  the  severe  and  long-continued  illness,  indeed  to  the 
evidently  approaching  dissolution,  of  a  tenderly  beloved  30 
sister — his  sole  companion  for  long  years,  his  last  and 
only  relative  on  earth.  "Her  decease,"  he  said,  with  a 
bitterness  which  I  can  never  forget,  "would  leave  him 
(him  the  hopeless  and  the  frail)  the  last  of  the  ancient 


72  Edgar  Allan  Poe 

race  of  the  Ushers."  While  he  spoke,  the  lady  Madeline 
(for  so  was  she  called)  passed  slowly  through  a  remote 
portion  of  the  apartment,  and,  without  having  noticed 
my  presence,  disappeared.  I  regarded  her  with  an  utter 

5  astonishment  not  unmingled  with  dread,  and  yet  I  found 
it  impossible  to  account  for  such  feelings.  A  sensation 
of  stupor  oppressed  me,  as  my  eyes  followed  her  retreating 
steps.  When  a  door,  at  length,  closed  upon  her,  my  glance 
sought  instinctively  and  eagerly  the  countenance  of  the 

10  brother;  but  he  had  buried  his  face  in  his  hands,  and  I 

could  only  perceive  that  a  far  more  than  ordinary  wanness 

had   overspread   the   emaciated   fingers   through   which 

trickled  many  passionate  tears. 

The  disease  of  the  lady  Madeline  had  long  baffled  the 

15  skill  of  her  physicians.  A  settled  apathy,  a  gradual  wast- 
ing away  of  the  person,  and  frequent  although  transient 
affections  of  a  partially  cataleptical  character,  were  the 
unusual  diagnosis.  Hitherto  she  had  steadily  borne  up 
against  the  pressure  of  her  malady,  and  had  not  betaken 

20  herself  finally  to  bed;  but,  on  the  closing  in  of  the  evening 
of  my  arrival  at  the  house,  she  succumbed  (as  her  brother 
told  me  at  night  with  inexpressible  agitation)  to  the  pros- 
trating power  of  the  destroyer;  and  I  learned  that  the 
glimpse  I  had  obtained  of  her  person  would  thus  probably 

25  be  the  last  I  should  obtain — that  the  lady,  at  least  while 
living,  would  be  seen  by  me  no  more. 

For  several  days  ensuing,  her  name  was  unmentioned 
by  either  Usher  or  myself;  and  during  this  period  I  was 
busied  in  earnest  endeavors  to  alleviate  the  melancholy 

30  of  my  friend.  We  painted  and  read  together;  or  I  listened, 
as  if  in  a  dream,  to  the  wild  improvisation  of  his  speaking 
guitar.  And  thus,  as  a  closer  and  still  closer  intimacy  ad- 
mitted me  more  unreservedly  into  the  recesses  of  his 
spirit,  the  more  bitterly  did  I  perceive  the  futility  of  all 


The  Fall  of  the  House  of  Usher  73 

attempt  at  cheering  a  mind  from  which  darkness,  as  if  an 
inherent  positive  quality,  poured  forth  upon  all  objects 
of  the  moral  and  physical  universe,  in  one  unceasing  radia- 
tion of  gloom. 

I  shall  ever  bear  about  me  a  memory  of  the  many  solemn    5 
hours  I  thus  spent  alone  with  the  master  of  the  House  of 
Usher.     Yet  I  should  fail  in  any  attempt  to  convey  an 
idea  of  the  exact  character  of  the  studies,  or  of  the  occupa- 
tions, in  which  he  involved  me,  or  led  me  the  way.    An 
excited  and  highly  distempered  ideality  threw  a  sulphur-  10 
ous  luster  over  all.    His  long  improvised  dirges  will  ring 
forever  in  my  ears.    Among  other  things,  I  hold  painfully 
in  mind  a  certain  singular  perversion  and  amplification  of 
the  wild  air  of  the  last  waltz  of  Von  Weber.    From  the 
paintings  over  which  his  elaborate  fancy  brooded,  and  15 
which  grew,  touch  by  touch,  into  vaguenesses  at  which  I 
shuddered  the  more  thrillingly  because  I  shuddered  know- 
ing not  why; — from  these  paintings  (vivid  as  their  images 
now  are  before  me)  I  would  in  vain  endeavor  to  educe 
more  than  a  small  portion  which  should  lie  within  the  20 
compass  of  merely  written  words.    By  the  utter  simplicity, 
by  the  nakedness  of  his  designs,  he  arrested  and  overawed 
attention.     If  ever  mortal  painted  an  idea,  that  mortal 
was  Roderick  Usher.    For  me  at  least,  in  the  circumstances 
then  surrounding  me,  there  arose,  out  of  the  pure  abstrac-  25 
tions  which  the  hypochondriac  contrived  to  throw  upon 
his  canvas,  an  intensity  of  intolerable  awe,  no  shadow  of 
which  felt  I  ever  yet  in  the  contemplation  of  the  certainly 
glowing  yet  too  concrete  reveries  of  Fuseli. 

One  of  the  phantasmagoric  conceptions  of  my  friend,  30 
partaking  not  so  rigidly  of  the  spirit  of  abstraction,  may 
be  shadowed  forth,  although  feebly,  in  words.     A  small 
picture  presented  the  interior  of  an  immensely  long  and 
rectangular  vault  or  tunnel,  with  low  walls,  smooth,  white, 


74  Edgar  Allan  Poe 

and  without  interruption  or  device.  Certain  accessory 
points  of  the  design  served  well  to  convey  the  idea  that 
this  excavation  lay  at  an  exceeding  depth  below  the  surface 
of  the  earth.  No  outlet  was  observed  in  any  portion  of 
5  its  vast  extent,  and  no  torch  or  other  artificial  source  of 
light  was  discernible;  yet  a  flood  of  intense  rays  rolled 
throughout,  and  bathed  the  whole  in  a  ghastly  and  inap- 
propriate splendor. 

I  have  just  spoken  of  that  morbid  condition  of  the  audi- 

10  tory  nerve  which  rendered  all  music  intolerable  to  the 
sufferer,  with  the  exception  of  certain  effects  of  stringed 
instruments.  It  was,  perhaps,  the  narrow  limits  to  which 
he  thus  confined  himself  upon  the  guitar,  which  gave 
birth,  in  great  measure,  to  the  fantastic  character  of  his 

15  performances.  But  the  fervid  facility  of  his  impromptus 
could  not  be  so  accounted  for.  They  must  have  been, 
and  were,  in  the  notes,  as  well  as  in  the  words  of  his  wild 
fantasies  (for  he  not  unfrequently  accompanied  himself 
with  rhymed  verbal  improvisations),  the  result  of  that 

20  intense  mental  collectedness  and  concentration  to  which 
I  have  previously  alluded  as  observable  only  in  particular 
moments  of  the  highest  artificial  excitement.  The  words 
of  one  of  these  rhapsodies  I  have  easily  remembered.  I 
was,  perhaps,  the  more  forcibly  impressed  with  it,  as  he 

25  gave  it,  because,  in  the  under  or  mystic  current  of  its 
meaning,  I  fancied  that  I  perceived,  and  for  the  first  time, 
a  full  consciousness,  on  the  part  of  Usher,  of  the  tottering 
of  his  lofty  reason  upon  her  throne.  The  verses,  which 
were  entitled  "The  Haunted  Palace,"  ran  very  nearly,  if 

30  not  accurately,  thus: — 

i 
In  the  greenest  of  our  valleys 

By  good  angels  tenanted, 
Once  a  fair  and  stately  palace — 
Radiant  palace — reared  its  head. 


The  Fall  of  the  House  of  Usher      .       75 


In  the  monarch  Thought's  dominion, 

It  stood  there; 
Never  seraph  spread  a  pinion 

Over  fabric  half  so  fair. 


Banners  yellow,  glorious,  golden,  5 

On  its  roof  did  float  and  flow, 
(This — all  this — was  in  the  olden 

Time  long  ago) 
And  every  gentle  air  that  dallied, 

In  that  sweet  day,  10 

Along  the  ramparts. plumed  and  pallid, 

A  winged  odor  went  away. 

in 

Wanderers  in  that  happy  valley 

Through  two  luminous  windows  saw 
Spirits  moving  musically  15 

To  a  lute's  well-tuned  law, 
Round  about  a  throne  where,  sitting, 

Porphyrogene, 
In  state  his  glory  well  befitting, 

The  ruler  of  the  realm  was  seen.  20 

IV 

And  all  with  pearl  and  ruby  glowing 

Was  the  fair  palace  door, 
Through  which  came  flowing,  flowing,  flowing, 

And  sparkling  evermore, 
A  troop  of  Echoes  whose  sweet  duty  25 

Was  but  to  sing, 
In  voices  of  surpassing  beauty, 

The  wit  and  wisdom  of  their  king. 


But  evil  things,  in  robes  of  sorrow 

Assailed  the  monarch's  high  estate;  30 

(Ah,  let  us  mourn,  for  never  morrow 

Shall  dawn  upon  him,  desolate!) 
And  round  about  his  home  the  glory 

That  blushed  and  bloomed 
Is  but  a  dim-remembered  story  35 

Of  the  old  time  entombed. 


76  Edgar  Allan  Poe 

VI 

And  travelers  now  within  that  valley 

Through  the  red-litten  windows  see 
Vast  forms  that  move  fantastically 

To  a  discordant  melody; 
5  While,  like  a  ghastly  rapid  river, 

Through  the  pale  door 
A  hideous  throng  rush  out  forever, 

And  laugh — but  smile  no  more. 

I  well  remember  that  suggestions  arising  from  this  bal- 

10  lad  led  us  into  a  train  of  thought,  wherein  there  became 
manifest  an  opinion  of  Usher's  which  I  mention  not  so 
much  on  account  of  its  novelty,  (for  other  men  l  have 
thought  thus,)  as  on  account  of  the  pertinacity  with  which 
he  maintained  it.  This  opinion,  in  its  general  form,  was 

15  that  of  the  sentience  of  all  vegetable  things.  But  in  his 
disordered  fancy  the  idea  had  assumed  a  more  daring 
character,  and  trespassed,  under  certain  conditions,  upon 
the  kingdom  of  inorganization.  I  lack  words  to  express 
the  full  extent,  or  the  earnest  abandon  of  his  persuasion. 

20  The  belief,  however,  was  connected  (as  I  have  previously 
hinted)  with  the  gray  stones  of  the  home  of  his  forefathers. 
The  conditions  of  the  sentience  had  been  here,  he  imag- 
ined, fulfilled  in  the  method  of  collocation  of  these  stones 
—in  the  order  of  their  arrangement,  as  well  as  in  that  of 

25  the  many  fungi  which  overspread  them,  and  of  the  de- 
cayed trees  which  stood  around — above  all,  in  the  long 
undisturbed  endurance  of  this  arrangement,  and  in  its 
reduplication  in  the  still  waters  of  the  tarn.  Its  evidence — 
the  evidence  of  the  sentience — was  to  be  seen,  he  said  (and 

30  I  here  started  as  he  spoke),  in  the  gradual  yet  certain  con- 
densation of  an  atmosphere  of  their  own  about  the  waters 
and  the  walls.  The  result  was  discoverable,  he  added, 

1  Watson,  Dr.  Perciva!,  Spallanzani,  and  especially  the  Bishop  of 
Landaff.— See  "Chemical  Essays,"  Vol.  V. 


The  Fall  of  the  House  of  Usher  77 

in  that  silent,  yet  importunate  and  terrible  influence  which 
for  centuries  had  moulded  the  destinies  of  his  family,  and 
which  made  him  what  I  now  saw  him — what  he  was.  Such 
opinions  need  no  comment,  and  I  will  make  none. 

Our  books — the  books  which,  for  years,  had  formed  no    5 
small  portion  of  the  mental  existence  of  the  invalid — were, 
as  might  be  supposed,  in  strict  keeping  with  this  character 
of  phantasm.    We  pored  together  over  such  works  as  the 
Ververt  and   Chartreuse  of   Cresset;   the   Belphegor  of 
Machiavelli;  the  Heaven  and  Hell  of  Swedenborg;  the  10 
Subterranean  Voyage  of  Nicholas  Klimm  by  Holberg;  the 
Chiromancy  of  Robert  Flud,  of  Jean  DTndagine,  and  of 
De  la  Chambre;  the  Journey  into  the  Blue  Distance  of 
Tieck;  and  the  City  of  the  Sun  of  Campanella.     One 
favorite  volume  was  a  small  octavo  edition  of  the  Director-  1 5 
ium  Inquisitorum,  by  the  Dominican  Eymeric  de  Gironne; 
and  there  were  passages  in  Pomponius  Mela,  about  the  old 
African  Satyrs  and  ^Egipans,  over  which  Usher  would  sit 
dreaming  for  hours.     His   chief  delight,   however,   was 
found  in  the  perusal  of  an  exceedingly  rare  and  curious  20 
book  in  quarto  Gothic — the  manual  of  a  forgotten  church — 
the  Vigilia  Mortuorum  secundum  Chorum  Ecclesm  Magun- 
tince. 

I  could  not  help  thinking  of  the  wild  ritual  of  this  work, 
and  of  its  probable  influence  upon  the  hypochondriac,  25 
when  one  evening,  having  informed  me  abruptly  that  the 
lady  Madeline  was  no  more,  he  stated  his  intention  of 
preserving  her  corpse  for  a  fortnight,  (previously  to  its 
final  interment,)  in  one  of  the  numerous  vaults  within  the 
main  walls  of  the  building.  The  worldly  reason,  however,  30 
assigned  for  this  singular  proceeding,  was  one  which  I  did 
not  feel  at  liberty  to  dispute.  The  brother  had  been  led 
to  his  resolution  (so  he  told  me)  by  consideration  of  the 
unusual  character  of  the  malady  of  the  deceased,  of  certain 


78  Edgar  Allan  Poe 

obtrusive  and  eager  inquiries  on  the  part  of  her  medical 
men,  and  of  the  remote  and  exposed  situation  of  the  burial- 
ground  of  the  family.  I  will  not  deny  that  when  I  called 
to  mind  the  sinister  countenance  of  the  person  whom  I  met- 
5  upon  the  staircase,  on  the  day  of  my  arrival  at  the  house, 
I  had  no  desire  to  oppose  what  I  regarded  as  at  best  but  a 
harmless,  and  by  no  means  an  unnatural,  precaution. 

At  the  request  of  Usher,  I  personally  aided  him  in  the 
arrangements  for  the  temporary  entombment.  The  body 

10  having  been  encomned,  we  two  alone  bore  it  to  its  rest. 
The  vault  in  which  we  placed  it  (and  which  had  been  so 
long  unopened  that  our  torches,  half  smothered  in  its  op- 
pressive atmosphere,  gave  us  little  opportunity  for  in- 
vestigation) was  small,  damp,  and  entirely  without  means 

15  of  admission  for  light;  lying,  at  great  depth,  immediately 
beneath  that  portion  of  the  building  in  which  was  my  own 
sleeping  apartment.  It  had  been  used,  apparently,  in  re- 
mote feudal  times,  for  the  worst  purposes  of  a  donjon-keep, 
and  in  later  days  as  a  place  of  deposit  for  powder,  or  some 

20  other  highly  combustible  substance,  as  a  portion  of  its 
floor,  and  the  whole  interior  of  a  long  archway  through 
which  we  reached  it,  were  carefully  sheathed  with  copper. 
The  door,  of  massive  iron,  had  been,  also,  similarly  pro- 
tected. Its  immense  weight  caused  an  unusually  sharp 

25  grating  sound,  as  it  moved  upon  its  hinges. 

Having  deposited  our  mournful  burden  upon  tressels 
within  this  region  of  horror,  we  partially  turned  aside  the 
yet  unscrewed  lid  of  the  coffin,  and  looked  upon  the  face 
of  the  tenant.  A  striking  similitude  between  the  brother 

30  and  sister  now  first  arrested  my  attention;  and  Usher, 
divining,  perhaps,  my  thoughts,  murmured  out  some  few 
words  from  which  I  learned  that  the  deceased  and  himself 
had  been  twins,  and  that  sympathies  of  a  scarcely  intel- 
ligible nature  had  always  existed  between  them.  Our 


The  Fall  of  the  House  of  Usher  79 

glances,  however,  rested  not  long  upon  the  dead — for  we 
could  not  regard  her  unawed.  The  disease  which  had  thus 
entombed  the  lady  in  the  maturity  of  youth,  had  left,  as 
.usual  in  all  maladies  of  a  strictly  cataleptical  character, 
the  mockery  of  a  faint  blush  upon  the  bosom  and  the  face,  5 
and  that  suspiciously  lingering  smile  upon  the  lip  which  is 
so  terrible  in  death.  We  replaced  and  screwed  down  the 
lid,  and,  having  secured  the  door  of  iron,  made  our  way, 
with  toil,  into  the  scarcely  less  gloomy  apartments  of  the 
upper  portion  of  the  house.  10 

And  now,  some  days  of  bitter  grief  having  elapsed,  an 
observable  change  came  over  the  features  of  the  mental 
disorder  of  my  friend.  His  ordinary  manner  had  vanished. 
His  ordinary  occupations  were  neglected  or  forgotten.  He 
roamed  from  chamber  to  chamber  with  hurried,  unequal,  15 
and  objectless  step.  The  pallor  of  his  countenance  had  as- 
sumed, if  possible,  a  more  ghastly  hue — but  the  luminous- 
ness  of  his  eye  had  utterly  gone  out.  The  once  occasional 
huskiness  of  his  tone  was  heard  no  more;  and  a  tremulous 
quaver,  as  if  of  extreme  terror,  habitually  characterized  20 
his  utterance.  There  were  times,  indeed,  when  I  thought 
his  unceasingly  agitated  mind  was  laboring  with  some  op- 
pressive secret,  to  divulge  which  he  struggled  for  the  nec- 
essary courage.  At  times,  again,  I  was  obliged  to  resolve 
all  into  the  mere  inexplicable  vagaries  of  madness,  for  I  25 
beheld  him  gazing  upon  vacancy  for  long  hours,  in  an 
attitude  of  the  profoundest  attention,  as  if  listening  to 
some  imaginary  sound.  It  was  no  wonder  that  his  con- 
dition terrified — that  it  infected  me.  I  felt  creeping  upon 
me,  by  slow  yet  certain  degrees,  the  wild  influences  of  his  30 
own  fantastic  yet  impressive  superstitions. 

It  was,  especially,  upon  retiring  to  bed  late  in  the  night 
of  the  seventh  or  eighth  day  after  the  placing  of  the  lady 
Madeline  within  the  donjon,  that  I  experienced  the  full 


80  Edgar  Allan  Poe 

power  of  such  feelings.  Sleep  came  not  near  my  couch, 
while  the  hours  waned  and  waned  away.  I  struggled  to 
reason  off  the  nervousness  which  had  dominion  over  me. 
I  endeavored  to  believe  that  much,  if  not  all,  of  what  I  felt 
5  was  due  to  the  bewildering  influence  of  the  gloomy  furni- 
ture of  the  room — of  the  dark  and  tattered  draperies  which, 
tortured  into  motion  by  the  breath  of  a  rising  tempest, 
swayed  fitfully  to  and  fro  upon  the  walls,  and  rustled  un- 
easily about  the  decorations  of  the  bed.  But  my  efforts 

10  were  fruitless.  An  irrepressible  tremor  gradually  pervaded 
my  frame;  and  at  length  there  sat  upon  my  very  heart  an 
incubus  of  utterly  causeless  alarm.  Shaking  this  off  with  a 
gasp  and  a  struggle,  I  uplifted  myself  upon  the  pillows, 
and,  peering  earnestly  within  the  intense  darkness  of  the 

15  chamber,  hearkened — I  know  not  why,  except  that  an  in- 
stinctive spirit  prompted  me — to  certain  low  and  indefinite 
sounds  which  came,  through  the  pauses  of  the  storm,  at 
long  intervals,  I  knew  not  whence.  Overpowered  by  an 
intense  sentiment  of  horror,  unaccountable  yet  unendur- 

20  able,  I  threw  on  my  clothes  with  haste,  (for  I  felt  that  I 
should  sleep  no  more  during  the  night,)  and  endeavored 
to  arouse  myself  from  the  pitiable  condition  into  which  I 
had  fallen,  by  pacing  rapidly  to  and  fro  through  the  apart- 
ment. 

25  I  had  taken  but  few  turns  in  this  manner,  when  a  light 
step  on  an  adjoining  staircase  arrested  my  attention.  I 
presently  recognized  it  as  that  of  Usher.  In  an  instant 
afterward  he  rapped  with  a  gentle  touch  at  my  door,  and 
entered,  bearing  a  lamp.  His  countenance  was,  as  usual, 

30  cadaverously  wan — but,  moreover,  there  was  a  species  of 
mad  hilarity  in  his  eyes — an  evidently  restrained  hysteria 
in  his  whole  demeanor.  His  air  appalled  me — but  any- 
thing was  preferable  to  the  solitude  which  I  had  so  long 
endured,  and  I  even  welcomed  his  presence  as  a  relief. 


The  Fall  of  the  House  of  Usher  81 

"And  you  have  not  seen  it?"  he  said  abruptly,  after 
having  stared  about  him  for  some  moments  in  silence — 
"you  have  not  then  seen  it? — but,  stay!  you  shall."  Thus 
speaking,  and  having  carefully  shaded  his  lamp,  he  hurried 
to  one  of  the  casements,  and  threw  it  freely  open  to  the  5 
storm. 

The  impetuous  fury  of  the  entering  gust  nearly  lifted 
us  from  our  feet.  It  was,  indeed,  a  tempestuous  yet  sternly 
beautiful  night,  and  one  wildly  singular  in  its  terror  and 
its  beauty.  A  whirlwind  had  apparently  collected  its  10 
force  in  our  vicinity;  for  there  were  frequent  and  violent 
alterations  in  the  direction  of  the  wind;  and  the  exceeding 
density  of  the  clouds  (which  hung  so  low  as  to  press  upon 
the  turrets  of  the  house)  did  not  prevent  our  perceiving 
the  life-like  velocity  with  which  they  flew  careering  from  15 
all  points  against  each  other,  without  passing  away  into 
the  distance.  I  say  that  even  their  exceeding  density  did 
not  prevent  our  perceiving  this;  yet  we  had  no  glimpse  of 
the  moon  or  stars,  nor  was  there  any  flashing  forth  of  the 
lightning.  But  the  under  surfaces  of  the  huge  masses  of  20 
agitated  vapor,  as  well  as  all  terrestrial  objects  immediately 
around  us,  were  glowing  in  the  unnatural  light  of  a  faintly 
luminous  and  distinctly  visible  gaseous  exhalation  which 
hung  about  and  enshrouded  the  mansion. 

"You  must  not — you  shall  not  behold  this!"  said  I,  25 
shudderingly,  to  Usher,  as  I  led  him  with  a  gentle  violence 
from  the  window  to  a  seat.     "These  appearances,  which 
bewilder  you,  are  merely  electrical  phenomena  not  un- 
common— or  it  may  be  that  they  have  their  ghastly  origin 
in  the  rank  miasma  of  the  tarn.    Let  us  close  this  casement;  30 
the  air  is  chilling  and  dangerous  to  your  frame.    Here  is 
one  of  your  favorite  romances.    I  will  read,  and  you  shall 
listen; — and  so  we  will  pass  away  this  terrible  night  to- 
gether.*' 


82  Edgar  Allan  Poe 

The  antique  volume  which  I  had  taken  up  was  the 
"Mad  Trist"  of  Sir  Launcelot  Canning;  but  I  had  called 
it  a  favorite  of  Usher's  more  in  sad  jest  than  in  earnest; 
for,  in  truth,  there  is  little  in  its  uncouth  and  unimagina- 
5  tive  prolixity  which  could  have  had  interest  for  the  lofty 
and  spiritual  ideality  of  my  friend.  It  was,  however,  the 
only  book  immediately  at  hand;  and  I  indulged  a  vague 
hope  that  the  excitement  which  now  agitated  the  hypo- 
chondriac might  find  relief  (for  the  history  of  mental  dis- 

10  order  is  full  of  similar  anomalies)  even  in  the  extremeness 
of  the  folly  which  I  should  read.  Could  I  have  judged, 
indeed,  by  the  wild  overstrained  air  of  vivacity  with  which 
he  hearkened,  or  apparently  hearkened,  to  the  words  of 
the  tale,  I  might  well  have  congratulated  myself  upon  the 

15  success  of  my  design. 

I  had  arrived  at  that  well-known  portion  of  the  story 
where  Ethelred,  the  hero  of  the  Trist,  having  sought  in 
vain  for  peaceable  admission  into  the  dwelling  of  the  her- 
mit, proceeds  to  make  good  an  entrance  by  force.  Here, 

20  it  will  be  remembered,  the  words  of  the  narrative  run 
thus:— 

"And  Ethelred,  who  was  by  nature  of  a  doughty  heart,  and 
who  was  now  mighty  withal,  on  account  of  the  powerfulness 
of  the  wine  which  he  had  drunken,  waited  no  longer  to  hold 

25  parley  with  the  hermit,  who,  in  sooth,  was  of  an  obstinate  and 
maliceful  turn,  but,  feeling  the  rain  upon  his  shoulders,  and 
fearing  the  rising  of  the  tempest,  uplifted  his  mace  outright, 
and  with  blows  made  quickly  room  in  the  plankings  of  the  door 
for  his  gauntleted  hand;  and  now  pulling  therewith  sturdily, 

30  he  so  cracked,  and  ripped,  and  tore  all  asunder,  that  the  noise 
of  the  dry  and  hollow-sounding  wood  alarumed  and  rever- 
berated throughout  the  forest." 

At  the  termination  of  this  sentence  I  started,  and  for 
a  moment  paused;  for  it  appeared  to  me  (although  I  at 


The  Fall  of  the  House  of  Usher  83 

once  concluded  that  my  excited  fancy  had  deceived  me)— 
it  appeared  to  me  that  from  some  very  remote  portion  of 
the  mansion  there  came,  indistinctly,  to  my  ears,  what 
might  have  been,  in  its  exact  similarity  of  character,  the 
echo  (but  a  stifled  and  dull  one  certainly)  of  the  very  crack-  5 
ing  and  ripping  sound  which  Sir  Launcelot  had  so  particu- 
larly described.  It  was,  beyond  doubt,  the  coincidence 
alone  which  had  arrested  my  attention;  for,  amid  the 
rattling  of  the  sashes  of  the  casements,  and  the  ordinary 
commingled  noises  of  the  still  increasing  storm,  the  sound,  10 
in  itself,  had  nothing,  surely,  which  should  have  interested 
or  disturbed  me.  I  continued  the  story: — 

"But  the  good  champion  Ethelred,  now  entering  within  the 
door,  was  sore  enraged  and  amazed  to  perceive  no  signal  of  the 
maliceful  hermit;  but,  in  the  stead  thereof,  a  dragon  of  a  scaly  15 
and  prodigious  demeanor,  and  of  a  fiery  tongue,  which  sate  in 
guard  before  a  palace  of  gold,  with  a  floor  of  silver;  and  upon 
the  wall  there  hung  a  shield  of  shining  brass  with  this  legend 
enwritten — • 

Who  entereth  herein,  a  conqueror  hath  bin;  20 

Who  slayeth  the  dragon,  the  shield  he  shall  win. 

And  Ethelred  uplifted  his  mace,  and  struck  upon  the  head  of 
the  dragon,  which  fell  before  him,  and  gave  up  his  pesty  breath, 
with  a  shriek  so  horrid  and  harsh,  and  withal  so  piercing,  that 
Ethelred  had  fain  to  close  his  ears  with  his  hands  against  the  25 
dreadful  noise  of  it,  the  like  whereof  was  never  before  heard." 

Here  again  I  paused  abruptly,  and  now  writh  a  feeling  of 
wild  amazement;  for  there  could  be  no  doubt  whatever 
that,  in  this  instance,  I  did  actually  hear  (although  from 
what  direction  it  proceeded  I  found  it  impossible  to  say)  30 
a  low  and  apparently  distant,  but  harsh,  protracted,  and 
most  unusual  screaming  or  grating  sound — the  exact 
counterpart  of  what  my  fancy  had  already  conjured  up  for 


84  Edgar  Allan  Poe 

the  dragon's  unnatural  shriek  as  described  by  the  ro- 
mancer. 

Oppressed,  as  I  certainly  was,  upon  the  occurrence  of 
this  second  and  most  extraordinary  coincidence,  by  a 
5  thousand  conflicting  sensations,  in  which  wonder  and  ex- 
treme terror  were  predominant,  I  still  retained  sufficient 
presence  of  mind  to  avoid  exciting,  by  any  observation, 
the  sensitive  nervousness  of  my  companion.  I  was  by  no 
means  certain  that  he  had  noticed  the  sounds  in  question; 

10  although,  assuredly,  a  strange  alteration  had  during  the 
last  few  minutes  taken  place  in  his  demeanor.  From  a 
position  fronting  my  own,  he  had  gradually  brought  round 
his  chair,  so  as  to  sit  with  his  face  to  the  door  of  the  cham- 
ber; and  thus  I  could  but  partially  perceive  his  features, 

15  although  I  saw  that  his  lips  trembled  as  if  he  were  mur- 
muring inaudibly.  His  head  had  dropped  upon  his  breast — 
yet  I  knew  that  he  was  not  asleep,  from  the  wide  and  rigid 
opening  of  the  eye  as  I  caught  a  glance  of  it  in  profile.  The 
motion  of  his  body,  too,  was  at  variance  with  this  idea — 

20  for  he  rocked  from  side  to  side  with  a  gentle  yet  constant 
and  uniform  sway.  Having  rapidly  taken  notice  of  all  this, 
'I  resumed  the  narrative  of  Sir  Launcelot,  which  thus  pro- 
ceeded:— 

"And  now,  the  champion,  hayving  escaped  from  the  terrible 
25  fury  of  the  dragon,  bethinking  himself  of  the  brazen  shield,  and 
of  the  breaking  up  of  the  enchantment  which  was  upon  it,  re- 
moved the  carcass  from  out  of  the  way  before  him,  and  ap- 
proached valorously  over  the  silver  pavement  of  the  castle  to 
where  the  shield  was  upon  the  wall;  which  in  sooth  tarried  not 
3°  for  his  full  coming,  but  fell  down  at  his  feet  upon  the  silver  floor, 
with  a  mighty  great  and  terrible  ringing  sound." 

No  sooner  had  these  syllables  passed  my  lips,  than — as 
if  a  shield  of  brass  had  indeed,  at  the  moment,  fallen  heav- 


The  Fall  of  the  House  of  Usher  85 

ily  upon  a  floor  of  silver — I  became  aware  of  a  distinct,  hol- 
low, metallic  and  clangorous,  yet  apparently  muffled  rever- 
beration. Completely  unnerved,  I  leaped  to  my  feet;  but 
the  measured  rocking  movement  of  Usher  was  undisturbed. 
I  rushed  to  the  chair  in  which  he  sat.  His  eyes  were  bent  5 
fixedly  before  him,  and  throughout  his  whole  countenance 
there  reigned  a  stony  rigidity.  But,  as  I  placed  my  hand 
upon  his  shoulder,  there  came  a  strong  shudder  over  his 
whole  person;  a  sickly  smile  quivered  about  his  lips;  and 
I  saw  that  he  spoke  in  a  low,  hurried,  and  gibbering  mur-  10 
mur,  as  if  unconscious  of  my  presence.  Bending  closely 
over  him,  I  at  length  drank  in  the  hideous  import  of  his 
words. 

"Not  hear  it? — yes,  I  hear  it,  and  have  heard  it.  Long 
-long — long — many  minutes,  many  hours,  many  days,  15 
have  I  heard  it — yet  I  dared  not — oh,  pity  me,  miser- 
able wretch  that  I  am! — I  dared  not — I  dared  not  speak! 
We  have  put  her  living  in  the  tomb!  Said  I  not  that  my 
senses  were  acute?  I  now  tell  you  that  I  heard  her  first 
feeble  movements  in  the  hollow  coffin.  I  heard  them —  20 
many,  many  days  ago — yet  I  dared  not —  /  dared  not  speak! 
And  now — to7night — Ethelred — ha!  ha! — the  breaking  of 
the  hermit's  door,  and  the  death-cry  of  the  dragon,  and  the 
clangor  of  the  shield! — say,  rather,  the  rending  of  her 
coffin,  and  the  grating  of  the  iron  hinges  of  her  prison,  and  25 
her  struggles  within  the  coppered  archway  of  the  vault! 
Oh,  whither  shall  I  fly?  Will  she  not  be  here  anon?  Is  she 
not  hurrying  to  upbraid  me  for  my  haste?  Have  I  not 
heard  her  footstep  on  the  stair?  Do  I  not  distinguish  that 
heavy  and  horrible  beating  of  her  heart?  Madman!" —  30 
here  he  sprang  furiously  to  his  feet,  and  shrieked  out  his 
syllables,  as  if  in  the  effort  he  were  giving  up  his  soul — 
"Madman!  I  tell  you  that  she  now  stands  without  the  door!" 
AS  if  in  the  superhuman  energy  of  his  utterance  there 


86  Edgar  Allan  Poe 

had  been  found  the  potency  of  a  spell,  the  huge  antique 
panels  to  which  the  speaker  pointed  threw  slowly  back, 
upon  the  instant,  their  ponderous  and  ebony  jaws.  It 
was  the  work  of  the  rushing  gust — but  then  without  those 
5  doors  there  did  stand  the  lofty  and  enshrouded  figure  of  the 
lady  Madeline  of  Usher.  There  was  blood  upon  her  white 
robes,  and  the  evidence  of  some  bitter  struggle  upon  every 
portion  of  her  emaciated  frame.  For  a  moment  she  re- 
mained trembling  and  reeling  to  and  fro  upon  the  thresh- 

10  old — then,  with  a  low  moaning  cry,  fell  heavily  inward 
upon  the  person  of  her  brother,  and,  in  her  violent  and 
now  final  death-agonies,  bore  him  to  the  floor  a  corpse,  and 
a  victim  to  the  terrors  he  had  anticipated. 

From  that  chamber,  and  from  that  mansion,  I  fled 

15  aghast.  The  storm  was  still  abroad  in  all  its  wrath  as  I 
found  myself  crossing  the  old  causeway.  Suddenly  there 
shot  along  the  path  a  wild  light,  and  I  turned  to  see  whence 
a  gleam  so  unusual  could  have  issued;  for  the  vast  house 
and  its  shadows  were  alone  behind  me.  The  radiance  was 

20  that  of  the  full,  setting,  and  blood-red  moon,  which  now 
shone  vividly  through  that  once  barely-discernible  fissure, 
of  which  I  have  before  spoken  as  extending  from  the  roof 
of  the  building,  in  a  zigzag  direction,  to  the  base.  While  I 
gazed,  this  fissure  rapidly  widened — there  came  a  fierce 

25  breath  of  the  whirlwind — the  entire  orb  of  the  satellite 
burst  at  once  upon  my  sight — my  brain  reeled  as  I  saw 
the  mighty  walls  rushing  asunder — there  was  a  long 
tumultuous  shouting  sound  like  the  voice  of  a  thousand 
waters — and  the  deep  and  dank  tarn  at  my  feet  closed 

30  sullenly  and  silently  over  the  fragments  of  the  "House  of 
Usher." 


THE  GOLD-BUG 

By  EDGAR  ALLAN  POE 

What  ho!  what  ho!  this  fellow  is  dancing  mad! 
He  hath  been  bitten  by  the  Tarantula. 

All  in  the  Wrong. 

MANY  years  ago,  I  contracted  an  intimacy  with  a  Mr. 
William  Legrand.    He  was  of  an  ancient  Huguenot  family,    » 
and  had  once  been  wealthy;  but  a  series  of  misfortunes  had 
reduced  him  to  want.    To  avoid  the  mortification  conse-  g  . 
quent  upon  his  disasters,  he  left  New  Orleans,  the  city  of    5 
his  forefathers,  and  took  up  his  residence  at  Sullivan's 
Island,  near  Charleston,  South  Carolina. 

This  island  is  a  very  singular  one.    It  consists  of  little 
else  than  the  sea  sand,  and  is  about  three  miles  long.    Its 
breadth  at  no  point  exceeds  a  quarter  of  a  mile.    It  is  sep-  T0 
arated  from  the  main-land  by  a  scarcely  perceptible  creek, 
oozing  its  way  through  a  wilderness  of  reeds  and  slime,  a 
favorite  resort  of  the  marsh-hen.   The  vegetation,  as  might 
be  supposed,  is  scant,  or  at  least  dwarfish.    No  trees  of  any 
magnitude  are  to  be  seen.    Near  the  western  extremity,  15 
where  Fort  Moultrie  stands,  and  where  are  some  miserable 
frame  buildings,  tenanted  during  summer  by  the  fugitives 
from  Charleston  dust  and  fever,  may  be  found,  indeed,  the 
bristly  palmetto;  but  the  whole  island,  with  the  exception 
of  this  western  point,  and  a  line  of  hard  white  beach  on  2o 
the  seacoast,  is  covered  with  a  dense  undergrowth  of  the 
sweet  myrtle,  so  much  prized  by  the  horticulturists  of 
England.   The  shrub  here  often  attains  the  height  of  fifteen      4 
or  twenty  feet,  and  forms  an  almost  impenetrable  coppice, 
burdening  the  air  with  its  fragrance.  25' 

87 


88  Edgar  Allan  Poe 

In  the  utmost  recesses  of  this  coppice,  not  far  from  tke 
eastern  or  more  remote  end  of  the  island,  Legrand  had 
built  himself  a  small  hut,  which  he  occupied  when  I  first, 
by  mere  accident,  made  his  acquaintance.  This  soon 
5  ripened  into  friendship — for  there  was  much  in  the  recluse 
to  excite  interest  and  esteem.  I  found  him  well  educated, 
with  unusual  powers  of  mind,  but  infected  with  misan- 
thropy, and  subject  to  perverse  moods  of  alternate  en- 
thusiasm and  melancholy.  He  had  with  him  many  books, 

10  but  rarely  employed  them.  His  chief  amusements  were 
gunning  and  fishing,  or  sauntering  along  the  beach  and 
through  the  myrtles,  in  quest  of  shells  or  entomological 
specimens; — his  collection  of  the  latter  might  have  been 
envied  by  a  Swammerdamm.  In  these  excursions  he  was 

15  usually  accompanied  by  an  old  negro,  called  Jupiter,  who 
had  been  manumitted  before  the  reverses  of  the  family, 
but  who  could  be  induced,  neither  by  threats  nor  by 
promises,  to  abandon  what  he  considered  his  right  of  at- 
tendance upon  the  footsteps  of  his  young  "Massa  Will." 

20  It  is  not  improbable  that  the  relatives  of  Legrand,  con- 
ceiving him  to  be  somewhat  unsettled  in  intellect,  had  con- 
trived to  instil  this  obstinacy  into  Jupiter,  with  a  view  to 
the  supervision  and  guardianship  of  the  wanderer. 
The  winters  in  the  latitude  of  Sullivan's  Island  are 

25  seldom  very  severe,  and  in  the  fall  of  the  year  it  is  a  rare 
event  indeed  when  a  fire  is  considered  necessary.  About 
the  middle  of  October,  18 — ,  there  occurred,  however,  a 
day  of  remarkable  chilliness.  Just  before  sunset  I  scram- 
bled my  way  through  the  evergreens  to  the  hut  of  my 

30  friend,  whom  I  had  not  visited  for  several  weeks — my 
residence  being  at  that  time  in  Charleston,  a  distance  of 
nine  miles  from  the  island,  while  the  facilities  of  passage 
and  re-passage  were  very  far  behind  those  of  the  present 
Upon  reaching  the  hut  I  rapped,  as  was  my  pustpm, 


The  Gold-Bug  89 

and,  getting  no  reply,  sought  for  the  key  where  I  knew  it 
was  secreted,  unlocked  the  door  and  went  in.  A  fine  fire 
was  blazing  upon  the  hearth.  It  was  a  novelty,  and  by  no 
means  an  ungrateful  one.  I  threw  off  an  overcoat,  took 
an  armchair  by  the  crackling  logs,  and  awaited  patiently  5 
the  arrival  of  my  hosts. 

Soon  after  dark  they  arrived,  and  gave  me  a  most 
cordial  welcome.  Jupiter,  grinning  from  ear  to  ear,  bustled 
about  to  prepare  some  marsh-hens  for  supper.  Legrand 
was  in  one  of  his  fits — how  else  shall  I  term  them? — of  10 
enthusiasm.  He  had  found  an  unknown  bivalve,  forming 
a  new  genus,  and,  more  than  this,  he  had  hunted  down  and 
secured,  with  Jupiter's  assistance,  a  scarabceus  which  he 
believed  to  be  totally  new,  but  in  respect  to  which  he 
wished  to  have  my  opinion  on  the  morrow.  15 

"And  why  not  to-night?"  I  asked,  rubbing  my  hands 
over  the  blaze,  and  wishing  the  whole  tribe  of  scarabcei  at 
the  devil. 

"Ah,  if  I  had  only  known  you  were  here!"  said  Legrand, 
"but  it's  so  long  since  I  saw  you;  and  how  could  I  foresee  20 
that  you  would  pay  me  a  visit  this  very  night  of  all  others? 

As  I  was  coming  home  I  met  Lieutenant  G ,  from  the 

fort,  and,  very  foolishly,  I  lent  him  the  bug;  so  it  will  be 
impossible  for  you  to  see  it  until  the  morning.    Stay  here 
to-night,  and  I  will  send  Jup  down  for  it  at  sunrise.    It  is  25 
the  loveliest  thing  in  creation!" 

"What?— sunrise?" 

"Nonsense!  no! — the  bug.     It  is  of  a  brilliant  gold 
color — about  the  size  of  a  large  hickory-nut — with  two 
jet  black  spots  near  one   extremity  of   the   back,  and  30 
another,  somewhat  longer,  at  the  other.    The  antenna 
are " 

"Dey  ain't  no  tin  in  him,  Massa  Will,  I  keep  a  tellin 
on  you,"  here  interrupted  Jupiter;  "de  bug  is  a  goole-bug, 


9b  Edgar  Allan  Poe 

solid,  ebery  bit  of  him,  inside  and  all,  sep  him  wing — neber 
feel  half  so  hebby  a  bug  in  my  life." 

"Well,  suppose  it  is,  Jup,"  replied  Legrand,  somewhat 
more  earnestly,  it  seemed  to  me,  than  the  case  demanded, 
5  "is  that  any  reason  for  your  letting  the  birds  burn?  The 
color" — here  he  turned  to  me — "is  really  almost  enough 
to  warrant  Jupiter's  idea.  You  never  saw  a  more  brilliant 
metallic  luster  than  the  scales  emit — but  of  this  you  can- 
not judge  till  to-morrow.  In  the  mean  time  I  can  give  you 

10  some  idea  of  the  shape."  Saying  this,  he  seated  himself  at 
a  small  table,  on  which  were  a  pen  and  ink,  but  no  paper. 
He  looked  for  some  in  a  drawer,  but  found  none. 

"Never  mind,"  said  he  at  length,  "this  will  answer;" 
and  he  drew  from  his  waistcoat  pocket  a  scrap  of  what  I 

15  took  to  be  very  dirty  foolscap,  and  made  upon  it  a  rough 
drawing  with  the  pen.  While  he  did  this,  I  retained  my 
seat  by  the  fire,  for  I  was  still  chilly.  When  the  design 
was  complete,  he  handed  it  to  me  without  rising.  As  I  re- 
ceived it,  a  low  growl  was  heard,  succeeded  by  a  scratching 

20  at  the  door.  Jupiter  opened  it,  and  a  large  Newfoundland, 
belonging  to  Legrand,  rushed  in,  leaped  upon  my  shoulders, 
and  loaded  me  with  caresses;  for  I  had  shown  him  much 
attention  during  previous  visits.  When  his  gambols  were 
over,  I  looked  at  the  paper,  and,  to  speak  the  truth,  found 

25  myself  not  a  little  puzzled  at  what  my  friend  had  de- 
picted. 

"Well!"  I  said,  after  contemplating  it  for  some  minutes, 
this  is  a  strange  scarabaeus,  I  must  confess;  new  to  me: 
never  saw  anything  like  it  before — unless  it  was  a  skull,  or 

30  a  death's-head,  which  it  more  nearly  resembles  than  any- 
thing else  that  has  come  under  my  observation." 

"A  death's-head!"  echoed  Legrand— " Oh— yes— well, 
it  has  something  of  that  appearance  upon  paper,  no  doubt. 
The  two  upper  black  spots  look  like  eyes,  eh?  and  the 


The  Gold-Bug  91 

longer  one  at  the  bottom  like  a  mouth — and  then  the  shape 
of  the  whole  is  oval." 

" Perhaps  so,"  said  I;  "but,  Legrand,  I  fear  you  are  no 
artist.  I  must  wait  until  I  see  the  beetle  itself,  if  I  am  to 
form  any  idea  of  its  personal  appearance."  5 

"Well,  I  don't  know,"  said  he,  a  little  nettled,  "I  draw 
tolerably— should  do  it  at  least — have  had  good  masters, 
and  flatter  myself  that  I  am  not  quite  a  blockhead." 

"But,  my  dear  fellow,  you  are  joking  then,"  said  I,  "this 
is  a  very  passable  skull, — indeed,  I  may  say  that  it  is  a  10 
very  excellent  skull,  according  to  the  vulgar  notions  about 
such  specimens  of  physiology — and  your  scarabmis  must 
be  the  queerest  scarabceus  in  the  world  if  it  resembles  it. 
Why,  we  may  get  up  a  very  thrilling  bit  of  superstition 
upon  this  hint.    I  presume  you  will  call  the  bug  scarabceus  15 
caput  hominis,  or  something  of  that  kind — there  are  many 
similar  titles  in  the  Natural  Histories.     But  where  are 
the  antenna  you  spoke  of?" 

"The  antenna!"  said  Legrand,  who  seemed  to  be  getting 
unaccountably  warm  upon  the  subject;  "I  am  sure  you  20 
must  see  the  antenna.  I  made  them  as  distinct  as  they  are 
in  the  original  insect,  and  I  presume  that  is  sufficient." 

"Well,  well,"  I  said,  "perhaps  you  have— still  I  don't 
see  them; "  and  I  handed  him  the  paper  without  additional 
remark,  not  wishing  to  ruffle  his  temper;  but  I  was  much  25 
surprised  at  the  turn  affairs  had  taken;  his  ill  humor  puz- 
zled me — and,  as  for  the  drawing  of  the  beetle,  there  were 
positively  no  antennce  visible,  and  the  whole  did  bear  a 
very  close  resemblance  to  the  ordinary  cuts  of  a  death's- 
head.  30 

He  received  the  paper  very  peevishly,  and  was  about  to 
crumple  it,  apparently  to  throw  it  in  the  fire,  when  a  casual 
glance  at  the  design  seemed  suddenly  to  rivet  his  attention. 
In  an  instant  his  face  grew  violently  red — in  another  as 


92  Edgar  Allan  Poe 

excessively  pale.  For  some  minutes  he  continued  to 
scrutinize  the  drawing  minutely  where  he  sat.  At  length 
he  arose,  took  a  candle  from  the  table,  and  proceeded  to 
seat  himself  upon  a  sea-chest  in  the  farthest  corner  of  the 
5  room.  Here  again  he  made  an  anxious  examination  of 
the  paper;  turning  it  in  all  directions.  He  said  nothing, 
however,  and  his  conduct  greatly  astonished  me;  yet  I 
thought  it  prudent  not  to  exacerbate  the  growing  moodi- 
ness  of  his  temper  by  any  comment.  Presently  he  took 
10  from  his  coat  pocket  a  wallet,  placed  the  paper  carefully 
in  it,  and  deposited  both  in  a  writing-desk,  which  he  locked. 
He  now  grew  more  composed  in  his  demeanor;  but  his 
original  air  of  enthusiasm  had  quite  disappeared.  Yet  he 
seemed  not  so  much  sulky  as  abstracted.  As  the  evening 
15  wore  away  he  became  more  and  more  absorbed  in  re  very, 
from  which  no  sallies  of  mine  could  arouse  him.  It  had 
been  my  intention  to  pass  the  night  at  the  hut,  as  I  had 
frequently  done  before,  but,  seeing  my  host  in  this  mood, 
I  deemed  it  proper  to  take  leave.  He  did  not  press  me  to 
20  remain,  but,  as  I  departed,  he  shook  my  hand  with  even 
more  than  his  usual  cordiality. 

It  was  about  a  month  after  this  (and  during  the  interval 

I  had  seen  nothing  of  Legrand)  when  I  received  a  visit,  at 

Charleston,  from  his  man,  Jupiter.    I  had  never  seen  the 

25  good  old  negro  look  so  dispirited,  and  I  feared  that  some 

serious  disaster  had  befallen  my  friend. 

"Well,  Jup,"  said  I,  "what  is  the  matter  now? — how  is 
your  master?  " 

"Why,  to  speak  de  troof,  massa,  him  not  so  berry  well 
30  as  mought  be." 

"Not  well!  I  am  truly  sorry  to  hear  it.  What  does  he 
complain  of?" 

"Dar!  dat's  it! — him  neber  plain  of  notin — but  him 
berry  sick  for  all  dat." 


The  Gold-Bug  93 

"Very  sick,  Jupiter  I — why  didn't  you  say  so  at  once? 
Is  he  confined  to  bed?" 

"No,  dat  he  aint! — he  aint  find  nowhar — dat's  just  whar 
de  shoe  pinch — my  mind  is  got  to  be  berry  hebby  bout 
poor  Massa  Will."  5 

"Jupiter,  I  should  like  to  understand  what  it  is  you  are 
talking  about.  You  say  your  master  is  sick.  Hasn't  he 
told  you  what  ails  him?  " 

"Why,  massa,  taint  worf  while  for  to  git  mad  bcut  de 
matter — Massa  Will  say  nofi&n  at  all  aint  de  matter  wid  10 
him — but  den  what  make  him  go  about  looking  dis  here 
way,  wid  he  head  down  and  he  soldiers  up,  and  as  white  as 
a  gose?    And  den  he  keep  a  syphon  all  de  time " 

"Keeps  a  what,  Jupiter?" 

"  Keeps  a^yphon  wid  de  figgurs  on  de  slate— de  queerest  15 
figgurs  I  ebber  did  see.    Ise  gittin  to  be  skeered,  I  tell  you. 
Hab   for   to  keep  mighty  tight  eye  pon  him  noovers. 
Todder  day  he  gib  me  slip  fore  de  sun  up  and  was  gone  de 
whole  ob  de  blessed  day.    I  had  a  big  stick  ready  cut  for 

to  gib  him  d d  good  beating  when  he  did  come — but  20 

Ise  sich  a  fool  dat  I  hadn't  de  heart  arter  all — he  look  so 
berry  poorly." 

"  Eh?— what?— ah  yes! — upon  the  whole  I  think  you  had 
better  not  be  too  severe  with  the  poor  fellow — don't  flog 
him,  Jupiter — he  can't  very  well  stand  it — but  can  you  25 
form  no  idea  of  what  has  occasioned  this  illness,  or  rather 
this  change  of  conduct?  Has  anything  unpleasant  hap- 
pened since  I  saw  you?" 

"No,  massa,  dey  aint  bin  noffin  onpleasant  since  den — 
'twas  fore  den  I'm  feared — 'twas  de  berry  day  you  was  30 
dare." 

"How?  what  do  you  mean?" 

"Why,  massa,  I  mean  de  bug — dare  now." 

"The  what?" 


94  Edgar  Allan  Poe 

"De  bug — I'm  berry  sartain  dat  Massa  Will  bin  bit 
somewhere  bout  de  head  by  dat  goole-bug." 

"And  what  cause  have  you,  Jupiter,  for  such  a  supposi- 
tion?" 
5      "  Claws  enuff,  massa,  and  mouff  too.    I  nebber  did  see 

sich  a  d d  bug — he  kick  and  he  bite  ebery  ting  what 

cum  near  him.  Massa  Will  cotch  him  fuss,  but  had  for  to 
let  him  go  gin  mighty  quick,  I  tell  you — den  was  de  time 
he  must  ha  got  de  bite.  I  didn't  like  de  look  ob  de  bug 
10  mouff,  myself,  no  how,  so  I  wouldn't  take  hold  ob  him  wid 
my  finger,  but  I  cotch  him  wid  a  piece  ob  paper  dat  I 
found.  I  rap  him  up  in  de  paper  and  stuff  piece  ob  it  in 
he  mouff — dat  was  de  way." 

"And  you  think,  then,  that  your  master  was  really 
15  bitten  by  the  beetle,  and  that  the  bite  made  him  sick?" 

"I  don't  tink  noffin  about  it — I  nose  it.  What  make 
him  dream  bout  de  goole  so  much,  if  taint  cause  he  bit  by 
de  goole-bug?  Ise  heerd  bout  dem  goole-bugs  fore  dis." 

"But  how  do  you  know  he  dreams  about  gold?" 
20      "  How  I  know?  why  cause  he  talk  about  it  in  he  sleep — 
dat's  how  I  nose." 

"Well,  Jup,  perhaps  you  are  right;  but  to  what  fortunate 
circumstance  am  I  to  attribute  the  honor  of  a  visit  from 
you  to-day?" 
25       "  What  de  matter,  massa?  " 

"Did  you  bring  any  message  from  Mr.  Legrand?" 

"No,  massa,  I  bring  dis  here  pissel;"  and  here  Jupiter 
handed  me  a  note  which  ran  thus: 

"My  DEAR ,  Why  have  I  not  seen  you  for  so  long  a 

30  time?  I  hope  you  have  not  been  so  foolish  as  to  take  offence 
at  any  little  brusquerie  of  mine;  but  no,  that  is  improbable. 

"Since  I  saw  you  I  have  had  great  cause  for  anxiety.  I  have 
something  to  tell  you,  yet  scarcely  know  how  to  tell  it,  or 
whether  I  should  tell  it  at  all. 


The  Gold-Bug  95 

"I  have  not  been  quite  well  for  some  days  past,  and  poor 
old  Jup  annoys  me,  almost  beyond  endurance,  by  his  well- 
meant  attentions.  Would  you  believe  it? — he  had  prepared  a 
huge  stick,  the  other  day,  with  which  to  chastise  me  for  giving 
him  the  slip,  and  spending  the  day,  solus,  among  the  hills  on  5 
the  mainland.  I  verily  believe  that  my  ill  looks  alone  saved 
me  a  flogging. 

"I  have  made  no  addition  to  my  cabinet  since  we  met. 

"If  you  can,  in  any  way,  make  it  convenient,  come  over  with 
Jupiter.    Do  come.    I  wish  to  see  you  to-night,  upon  business  of  10 
importance.    I  assure  you  that  it  is  of  the  highest  importance. 

"Ever  yours, 

"WILLIAM  LEGRAND." 

There  was  something  in  the  tone  of  this  note  which  gave 
•me  great  uneasiness.    Its  whole  style  differed  materially  15 
from  that  of  Legrand.    What  could  he  be  dreaming  of? 
What  new  crotchet  possessed  his  excitable  brain?    What 
'"business  of  the  highest  importance"  could  he  possibly 
have  to  transact?     Jupiter's  account  of  him  boded  no 
good.    I  dreaded  lest  the  continued  pressure  of  misfortune  20 
had,  at  length,  fairly  unsettled  the  reason  of  my  friend. 
Without  a  moment's  hesitation,  therefore,  I  prepared  to 
accompany  the  negro. 

Upon  reaching  the  wharf,  I  noticed  a  scythe  and  three  ^ 
spades,  all  apparently  new,  lying  in  the  bottom  of  the  boat  25 
in  which  we  were  to  embark. 

"What  is  the  meaning  of  all  this,  Jup?"  I  inquired. 

"Him  syfe,  massa,  and  spade." 

"Very  true;  but  what  are  they  doing  here?" 

"Him  de  syfe  and  de  spade  what  Massa  Will  sis  pon  30 
my  buying  for  him  in  de  town,  and  de  debbil's  own  lot  of 
money  I  had  to  gib  for  em." 

"But  what,  in  the  name  of  all  that  is  mysterious,  is 
your  'Massa  Will'  going  to  do  with  scythes  and  spades?" 


96  Edgar  Allan  Poe 

"  Dat's  more  dan  I  know,  and  debbil  take  me  if  I  don't 
blieve  'tis  more  dan  he  know,  too.  But  it's  all  cum  ob  de 
bug." 

Finding  that  no  satisfaction  was  to  be  obtained  of 
5  Jupiter,  whose  whole  intellect  seemed  to  be  absorbed  by 
"de  bug,"  I  now  stepped  into  the  boat  and  made  sail. 
With  a  fair  and  strong  breeze  we  soon  ran  into  the  little 
cove  to  the  northward  of  Fort  Moultrie,  and  a  walk  of 
some  two  miles  brought  us  to  the  hut.  It  was  about  three 
10  in  the  afternoon  when  we  arrived.  Legrand  had  been 
awaiting  us  in  eager  expectation.  He  grasped  my  hand 
with  a  nervous  empressement,  which  alarmed  me  and 
strengthened  the  suspicions  already  entertained.  His 
countenance  was  pale,  even  to  ghastliness,  and  his  deep-set 
15  eyes  glared  with  unnatural  luster.  After  some  inquiries 
respecting  his  health,  I  asked  him,  not  knowing  what  better 
to  say,  if  he  had  yet  obtained  the  scarab&us  from  Lieuten- 
ant G- . 

"Oh,  yes,"  he  replied,  coloring  violently,  "I  got  it  from 
20  him  the  next  morning.  Nothing  should  tempt  me  to  part 
with  that  scarabceus.  Do  you  know  that  Jupiter  is  quite 
right  about  it?" 

"In  what  way?"  I  asked,  with  a  sad  foreboding  at  heart. 

"In  supposing  it  to  be  a  bug  of  real  gold"  He  said  this 
25  with  an  air  of  profound  seriousness,  and  I  felt  inexpressibly 
shocked. 

"This  bug  is  to  make  my  fortune,"  he  continued,  with  a 
triumphant  smile,  "  to  reinstate  me  in  my  family  posses- 
sions. Is  it  any  wonder,  then,  that  I  prize  it?  Since  For- 
30  tune  has  thought  fit  to  bestow  it  upon  me,  I  have  only  to 
use  it  properly  and  I  shall  arrive  at  the  gold  of  which  it  is 
the  index.  Jupiter,  bring  me  that  scardbceus!" 

"What!  de  bug,  massa?  I'd  rudder  not  go  fer  trubble 
dat  bug — you  mus  git  him  for  your  own  self."  Hereupon 


The  Gold-Bug  97 

Legrand  arose,  with  a  grave  and  stately  air,  and  brought 
me  the  beetle  from  a  glass  case  in  which  it  was  enclosed. 
It  was  a  beautiful  scarabceus,  and,  at  that  time,  unknown 
to  naturalists — of  course  a  great  prize  in  a  scientific  point 
of  view.  There  were  two  round,  black  spots  near  one  5 
extremity  of  the  back,  and  a  long  one  near  the  other.  The 
scales  were  exceedingly  hard  and  glossy,  with  all  the 
appearance  of  burnished  gold.  The  weight  of  the  insect 
was  very  remarkable,  and,  taking  all  things  into  considera- 
tion, I  could  hardly  blame  Jupiter  for  his  opinion  respecting  10 
it;  but  what  to  make  of  Legrand's  agreement  with  that 
opinion,  I  could  not,  for  the  life  of  me,  tell. 

"I  sent  for  you,"  said  he,  in  a  grandiloquent  tone,  when 
I  had  completed  my  examination  of  the  beetle,  "I  sent 
for  you,  that  I  might  have  your  counsel  and  assistance  in  15 
furthering  the  views  of  Fate  and  of  the  bug " 

"My  dear  Legrand,"  I  cried,  interrupting  him,  "you  are 
certainly  unwell,  and  had  better  use  some  little  precautions. 
You  shall  go  to  bed,  and  I  will  remain  with  you  a  few  days, 
until  you  get  over  this.  You  are  feverish  and "  20 

"Feel  my  pulse,"  said  he. 

I  felt  it,  and  to  say  the  truth,  found  not  the  slightest 
indication  of  fever. 

"But  you  may  be  ill,  and  yet  have  no  fever.    Allow  me 
this  once  to  prescribe  for  you.    In  the  first  place,  go  to  25 
bed.    In  the  next— 

"You  are  mistaken,"  he  interposed.  "I  am  as  well  as  I 
can  expect  to  be  under  the  excitement  which  I  suffer.  If 
you  really  wish  me  well,  you  will  relieve  this  excitement." 

"And  how  is  this  to  be  done?"  30 

"Very  easily.  Jupiter  and  myself  are  going  upon  an 
expedition  into  the  hills,  upon  the  mainland,  and,  in  this 
expedition,  we  shall  need  the  aid  of  some  person  in  whom 
we  can  confide.  You  are  the  only  one  we  can  trust. 


98  Edgar  Allan  Poe 

Whether  we  succeed  or  fail,  the  excitement  which  you  now 
perceive  in  me  will  be  equally  allayed." 

"I  am  anxious  to  oblige  you  in  any  way,"  I  replied;  "but 
do  you  mean  to  say  that  this  infernal  beetle  has  any 
S  connection  with  your  expedition  into  the  hills?" 

"It  has." 

"Then,  Legrand,  I  can  become  a  party  to  no  such 
absurd  proceeding." 

"I  am  sorry — very  sorry — for  we  shall  have  to  try  it  by 
10  ourselves." 

"Try  it  by  yourselves!    The  man  is  surely  mad! — but 
stay — how  long  do  you  propose  to  be  absent?" 

"Probably  all  night.    We  shall  start  immediately,  and 
be  back,  at  all  events,  by  sunrise." 

15  "And  will  you  promise  me,  upon  your  honor,  that  when 
this  freak  of  yours  is  over,  and  the  bug  business  (good 
God!)  settled  to  your  satisfaction,  you  will  then  return 
home  and  follow  my  advice  implicitly,  as  that  of  your 
physician?" 

20  "Yes;  I  promise;  and  now  let  us  be  off,  for  we  have  no 
time  to  lose." 

With  a  heavy  heart  I  accompanied  my  friend.  We 
started  about  four  o'clock — Legrand,  Jupiter,  the  dog,  and 
myself.  Jupiter  had  with  him  the  scythe  and  spades — 
25  the  whole  of  which  he  insisted  upon  carrying,  more  through 
fear,  it  seemed  to  me,  of  trusting  either  of  the  implements 
within  reach  of  his  master,  than  from  any  excess  of  industry 
or  complaisance.  His  demeanor  was  dogged  in  the  ex- 
treme, and  "dat  d d  bug"  were  the  sole  words  which 

30  escaped  his  lips  during  the  journey.  For  my  own  part, 
I  had  charge  of  a  couple  of  dark  lanterns,  while  Legrand 
contended  himself  with  the  scarabceus,  which  he  carried 
attached  to  the  end  of  a  bit  of  whip-cord;  twirling  it  to 
and  fro,  with  the  air  of  a  conjurer,  as  he  went.  When  I 


The  Gold-Bug  99 

observed  this  last,  plain  evidence  of  my  friend's  aberration 
of  mind,  I  could  scarcely  refrain  from  tears.  I  thought  it 
best,  however,  to  humor  his  fancy,  at  least  for  the  present, 
or  until  I  could  adopt  some  more  energetic  measures  with 
a  chance  of  success.  In  the  mean  time  I  endeavored,  but  5 
all  in  vain,  to  sound  him  in  regard  to  the  object  of  the 
expedition.  Having  succeeded  in  inducing  me  to  accom- 
pany him,  he  seemed  unwilling  to  hold  conversation  upon 
any  topic  of  minor  importance,  and  to  all  my  questions 
vouchsafed  no  other  reply  than  "we  shall  see!"  10 

We  crossed  the  creek  at  the  head  of  the  island  by  means 
of  a  skiff,  and,  ascending  the  high  grounds  on  the  shore  of 
the  mainland,   proceeded  in  a  northwesterly  direction, 
through  a  tract  of  country  excessively  wild  and  desolate, 
where  no  trace  of  a  human  footstep  was  to  be  seen.    Le-  15 
grand  led  the  way  with  decision;  pausing  only  for  an  in- 
stant, here  and  there,  to  consult  what  appeared  to  be 
certain  landmarks  of  his  own  contrivance  upon  a  former  <j 
occasion. 

In  this  manner  we  journeyed  for  about  two  hours,  and  20 
the  sun  was  just  setting  when  we  entered  a  region  infinitely 
more  dreary  than  any  yet  seen.    It  was  a  species  of  table- 
land, near  the  summit  of  an  almost  inaccessible  hill,  densely     I 6 
wooded  from  base  to  pinnacle,  and  interspersed  with  huge 
crags  that  appeared  to  lie  loosely  upon  the  soil,  and  in  25 
many  cases  were  prevented  from  precipitating  themselves 
into  the  valleys  below  merely  by  the  support  of  the  trees 
against  which  they  reclined.     Deep  ravines,  in  various 
directions,  gave  an  air  of  still  sterner  solemnity  to  the 
scene.  30 

The  natural  platform  to  which  we  had  clambered  was 
thickly  overgrown  with  brambles,  through  which  we  soon 
discovered  that  it  would  have  been  impossible  to  force 
our  way  but  for  the  scythe;  and  Jupiter,  by  direction  of 


ioo  Edgar  Allan  Poe 

his  master,  proceeded  to  clear  for  us  a  path  to  the  foot  of 
an  enormously  tall  tulip-tree,  which  stood,  with  some  eight 
or  ten  oaks,  upon  the  level,  and  far  surpassed  them  all, 
and  all  other  trees  which  I  had  then  ever  seen,  in  the  beauty 
5  of  its  foliage  and  form,  in  the  wide  spread  of  its  branches, 
and  in  the  general  majesty  of  its  appearance.  When  we 
reached  this  tree,  Legrand  turned  to  Jupiter,  and  asked 
him  if  he  thought  he  could  climb  it.  The  old  man  seemed 
a  little  staggered  by  the  question,  and  for  some  moments 

10  made  no  reply.  At  length  he  approached  the  huge  trunk, 
walked  slowly  around  it,  and  examined  it  with  minute 
attention.  When  he  had  completed  his  scrutiny,  he 
merely  said: 

"Yes,  massa,  Jup  climb  any  tree  he  ebber  see  in  he 

15  life." 

"  Then  up  with  you  as  soon  as  possible,  for  it  will  soon 
be  too  dark  to  see  what  we  are  about." 

"How  far  mus  go  up,  massa?"  inquired  Jupiter. 

"  Get  up  the  main  trunk  first,  and  then  I  will  tell  you 

20  which  way  to  go — and  here — stop!  take  this  beetle  with 
you." 

"De  bug,  Massa  Will!— de  goole-bug!"  cried  the  negro, 
drawing  back  in  dismay — "what  for  mus  tote  de  bug  way 
up  de  tree? — d — n  if  I  do!" 

25  "If  you  are  afraid,  Jup,  a  great  big  negro  like  you,  to 
take  hold  of  a  harmless  little  dead  beetle,  why,  you  can 
carry  it  up  by  this  string — but,  if  you  do  not  take  it  up 
with  you  in  some  way,  I  shall  be  under  the  necessity  of 
breaking  your  head  with  this  shovel." 

30      "What  de  matter  now,  massa?"  said  Jup,  evidently 

v  shamed  into  compliance;  "always  want  fur  to  raise  fuss 
wid  old  nigger/  WaTbnly  funnin  anyhow.  Me  feered  de 
bug!  what  I  keer  for  de  bug?"  Here  he  took  cautiously 
hold  of  the  extreme  end  of  the  string,  and,  maintaining 


The  Gold-Bug  -101 

the  insect  as  far  from  his  person  -as1  circumstances  \\xw4d' 
permit,  prepared  to  ascend  the  tree. 

In  youth,  the  tulip-tree,  or  Liriodendron  Tulipifera, 
the  most  magnificent  of  American  foresters,  has  a  trunk 
peculiarly  smooth,  and  often  rises  to  a  great  height  without  5 
lateral  branches;  but,  in  his  riper  age,  the  bark  becomes 
gnarled  and  uneven,  while  many  short  limbs  make  thtir 
appearance  on  the  stem.  Thus  the  difficulty  of  ascension, 
in  the  present  case,  lay  more  in  semblance  than  in  reality. 
^Embracing  the  huge  cyjinder,  as  closely  as  possible,  with  10 
his  arms  and  knees,  seizing  with  his  hands  some  projec- 
tions, and  resting  his  naked  toes  upon  others,  Jupiter, 
after  one  or  two  narrow  escapes  from  falling,  at  length 
wriggled  himself  into  the  first  great  fork,  and  seemed  to 
consider  the  whole  business  as  virtually  accomplished.  15 
The  risk  of  the  achievement  was,  in  fact,  now  over,  al- 
though the  climber  was  some  sixty  or  seventy  feet  from 
the  ground. 

" Which  way  mus  go  now,  Massa  Will?"  he  asked. 

"Keep  up  the  largest  branch, — the  one  on  this  side,"  20 
said  Legrand.  The  negro  obeyed  him  promptly,  and 
apparently  with  but  little  trouble,  ascending  higher  and 
higher,  until  no  glimpse  of  his  squat  figure  could  be  ob- 
tained through  the  dense  foliage  which  enveloped  it. 
Presently  his  voice  was  heard  in  a  sort  of  halloo.  25 

"How  much  fudder'is  got  for  go?" 

"How  high  up  are  you?"  asked  Legrand. 

"Ebber  so  fur,"  replied  the  negro;  "can  see  de  sky  fru 
de  top  ob  de  tree." 

"Never  mind  the  sky,  but  attend  to  what  I  say.    Look  30 
down  the  trunk  and  count  the  limbs  below  you  on  this 
side.    How  many  limbs  have  you  passed?  " 

"One,  two,  tree,  four,  fibe — I  done  pass  fibe  big  limb, 
massa,  pon  dis  side," 


IO2  '          *  v  :  :*£cigcir  Allan  Poe 

«  ***nsdi«|{d*one  Kmb'm'gfter." 

In  a  few  minutes  the  voice  was  heard  again,  announcing 
that  the  seventh  limb  was  attained. 

"Now,  Jup,"  cried  Legrand,  evidently  much  excited, 
5  "I  want  you  to  work  your  way  out  upon  that  limb  as  far 
as  you  can.    If  you  see  anything  strange,  let  me  know." 

By  this  time  what  little  doubt  I  might  have  entertained 
of  my  poor  friend's  insanity  was  put  finally  at  rest.  I  had 
no  alternative  but  to  conclude  him  stricken  with  lunacy, 
10  and  I  became  seriously  anxious  about  getting  him  home. 
While  I  was  pondering  upon  what  was  best  to  be  done, 
Jupiter's  voice  was  again  heard. 

"Mos  feerd  for  to  ventur  pon  dis  limb  berry  far — 'tis 
dead  limb  putty  much  all  de  way." 

15  "Did  you  say  it  was  a  dead  limb,  Jupiter?"  cried  Le- 
grand in  a  quavering  voice. 

"Yes,  massa,  him  dead  as  de  door-nail — done  up  for 
sartain — done  departed  dis  here  life." 

"What  in  the  name  of  heaven  shall  I  do?"  asked  Le- 
20  grand,  seemingly  in  the  greatest  distress. 

"Do!"  said  I,  glad  of  an  opportunity  to  interpose  a 
word,  "why  come  home  and  go  to  bed.  Come  now! — 
that's  a  fine  fellow.  It's  getting  late,  and,  besides,  you 
remember  your  promise." 

25  "Jupiter,"  cried  he,  without  heeding  me  in  the  least, 
"  do  you  hear  me?  " 

"Yes,  Massa  Will,  hear  you  ebber  so  plain." 
"Try  the  wood  well,  then,  with  your  knife,  and  see  if 
you  think  it  very  rotten." 

30  "Him  rotten,  massa,  sure  nuff,"  replied  the  negro  in  a 
few  moments,  "but  not  so  berry  rotten  as  mought  be. 
Mought  ventur  out  leetle  way  pon  de  limb  by  myself,  dat's 
true." 

"By  yourself! — what  do  you  mean?" 


The  Gold-Bu&  103 

"Why,  I  mean  de  bug.  'Tis  berry  hebby  bug.  Spose 
I  drop  him  down  fuss,  and  den  de  limb  won't  break  wid 
just  de  weight  ob  one  nigger." 

"You  infernal  scoundrel!"  cried  Legrand,  apparently 
much  relieved,  "what  do  you  mean  by  telling  me  such    5 
nonsense  as  that?    As  sure  as  you  let  that  beetle  fall,  I'll 
break  your  neck.     Look  here,  Jupiter!  do  you  hear  me?" 

"Yes,  massa,  needn't  hollo  at  poor  nigger  dat  style." 

"Well!  now  listen! — if  you  will  venture  out  on  the  limb 
as  far  as  you  think  safe,  and  not  let  go  the  beetle,  I'll  make  10 
you  a  present  of  a  silver  dollar  as  soon  as  you  get  down." 

"I'm  gwine,  Massa  Will — deed  I  is,"  replied  the  negro 
very  promptly — "mos  out  to  the  eend  now." 

"Out  to  the  end!"  here  fairly  screamed  Legrand,  "do 
you  say  you  are  out  to  the  end  of  that  limb?"  15 

"Soon  be  to  de  eend,  massa, — o-o-o-o-oh!  Lor-gol-a- 
marcy!  what  is  dis  here  pon  de  tree?" 

"Well!"  cried  Legrand,  highly  delighted,  "what  is  it?" 

"Why  taint  noffin  but  a  skul) — somebody  bin  lef  him 
head  up  de  tree,  and  de  crows  done  gobble  ebery  bit  ob  20 
de  meat  off." 

"A  skull,  you  say! — very  well! — how  is  it  fastened  to 
the  limb?— what  holds  it  on?" 

"Sure  nuff,  massa;  mus  look.    Why,  dis  berry  curous 
sjTomistance,  pon  my  word — dare's  a  great  big  nail  in  de  25 
skull,  what  fastens  ob  it  on  to  de  tree." 

"Well  now,  Jupiter,  do  exactly  as  I  tell  you — do  you 
hear?" 

"Yes,  massa." 

"Pay  attention,  then!— find  the  left  eye  of  the  skull."      30 

"Hum!  hoo!  dat's  good!  why,  dar  aint  no  eye  lef  at 
all." 

"Curse  your  stupidity!  do  you  know  your  right  hand 
from  your  left?" 


IO4  Edgar  Allan  Poe 

"Yes,  I  nose  dat— nose  all  about  dat — 'tis  my  lef  hand 
what  I  chops  de  wood  wid." 

"To  be  sure!    you  are  left-handed;  and  your  left  eye 
is  on  the  same  side  as  your  left  hand.    Now,  I  suppose,  you 
5  can  find  the  left  eye  of  the  skull,  or  the  place  where  the 
left  eye  has  been.    Have  you  found  it?  " 

Here  was  a  long  pause.    At  length  the  negro  asked, 
"Is  de  lef  eye  of  de  skull  pon  de  same  side  as  de  lef 
hand  of  de  skull,  too? — cause  de  skull  aint  got  not  a  bit 
10  ob  a  hand  at  all — nebber  mind!    I  got  de  lef  eye  now — 
here  de  lef  eye!  what  mus  do  wid  it?" 

"Let  the  beetle  drop  through  it,  as  far  as  the  string  will 
reach — but  be  careful  and  not  let  go  your  hold  of  the 
string." 

15      "All  dat  done,  Massa  Will;  mighty  easy  ting  for  to  put 
de  bug  fru  de  hole — look  out  for  him  dar  below!" 

During  this  colloquy  no  portion  of  Jupiter's  person 
could  be  seen;  but  the  beetle,  which  he  had  suffered  to 
descend,  was  now  visible  at  the  end  of  the  string,  and 
20  glistened,  like  a  globe  of  burnished  gold,  in  the  last  rays 
of  the  setting  sun,  some  of  which  still  faintly  illumined 
the  eminence  upon  which  we  stood.  The  scarabaus  hung 
quite  clear  of  any  branches,  and,  if  allowed  to  fall,  would 
have  fallen  at  our  feet.  Legrand  immediately  took  the 
25  scythe,  and  cleared  with  it  a  circular  space,  three  or  four 
yards  in  diameter,  just  beneath  the  insect,  and,  having 
accomplished  this,  ordered  Jupiter  to  let  go  the  string  and 
come  down  from  the  tree. 

Driving  a  peg,  with  great  nicety,  into  the  ground,  at  the 
30  precise  spot  where  the  beetle  fell,  my  friend  now  produced 
from  his  pocket  a  tape-measure.  Fastening  one  end  of  this 
at  that  point  of  the  trunk  of  the  tree  which  was  nearest 
the  peg,  he  unrolled  it  till  it  reached  the  peg,  and  thence 
farther  unrolled  it,  in  the  direction  already  established  by 


The  Gold-Bug  105 

the  two  points  of  the  tree  and  the  peg,  for  the  distance  of 
fifty  feet — Jupiter  clearing  away  the  brambles  with  the 
scythe.  At  the  spot  thus  attained  a  second  peg  was  driven, 
and  about  this,  as  a  center,  a  rude  circle,  about  four  feet 
in  diameter,  described.  Taking  now  a  spade  himself,  and  5 
giving  one  to  Jupiter  and  one  to  me,  Legrand  begged  us  to 
set  about  digging  as  quickly  as  possible. 

To  speak  the  truth,  I  had  no  especial  relish  for  such 
amusement  at  any  time,  and,  at  that  particular  moment, 
would  most  willingly  have  declined  it;  for  the  night  was  10 
coming  on,  and  I  felt  much  fatigued  with  the  exercise 
already  taken;  but  I  saw  no  mode  of  escape,  and  was     . 
fearful  of  disturbing  my  poor  friend's  equanimity  by  a   * 
refusal.     Could  I  have  depended,  indeed,  upon  Jupiter's 
aid,  I  would  have  had  no  hesitation  in  attempting  to  get  15 
the  lunatic  home  by  force;  but  I  was  too  well  assured  of 
the  old  negro's  disposition  to  hope  that  he  would  assist 
me,  under  any  circumstances,  in  a  personal  contest  with 
his  master.    I  made  no  doubt  that  the  latter  had  been 
infected  with  some  of  the  innumerable  Southern  supersti-  20 
tions  about  money  buried,  and  that  his  fantasy  had  re- 
ceived confirmation  by  the  finding  of  the  scarabceus,  or, 
perhaps,  by  Jupiter's  obstinacy  in  maintaining  it  to  be  "a 
bug  of  real  gold."     A  mind  disposed  to  lunacy  would 
readily  be  led  away  by  such  suggestions,  especially  if  25 
chiming  in  with  favorite  preconceived  ideas;  and  then  I      /fc 
called  to  mind  the  poor  fellow's  speech  about  the  beetle's 
being  "the  index  of  his  fortune."    Upon  the  whole,  I  was 
sadly  vexed  and  puzzled,  but  at  length  I  concluded  to  make 
a  virtue  of  necessity — to  dig  with  a  good  will,  and  thus  30 
the  sooner  to  convince  the  visionary,  by  ocular  demon-         r 
stration,  of  the  fallacy  of  the  opinions  he  entertained. 

The  lanterns  having  been  lit,  we  all  fell  to  work-  with  a 
zeal  worthy  a  more  rational  cause;  and,  as  the  glare  fell 


Io6  Edgar  Allan  Poe 

upon  our  persons  and  implements,  I  could  not  help  think- 
ing how  picturesque  a  group  we  composed,  and  how  strange 
and  suspicious  our  labors  must  have  appeared  to  any 
interloper  who,  by  chance,  might  have  stumbled  upon  our 
5  whereabouts. 

We  dug  very  steadily  for  two  hours.  Little  was  said; 
and  our  chief  embarrassment  lay  in  the  yelpings  of  the 
dog,  who  took  exceeding  interest  in  our  proceedings.  He, 
at  length,  became  so  obstreperous  that  we  grew  fearful  of 

10  his  giving  the  alarm  to  some  stragglers  in  the  vicinity;  or, 
rather,  this  was  the  apprehension  of  Legrand;  for  myself, 
I  should  have  rejoiced  at  any  interruption  which  might 
have  enabled  me  to  get  the  wanderer  home.  The  noise  was, 
at  length,  very  effectually  silenced  by  Jupiter,  who,  getting 

15  out  of  the  hole  with  a  dogged  air  of  deliberation,  tied  the 
brute's  mouth  up  with  one  of  his  suspenders,  and  then  re- 
turned, with  a  grave  chuckle,  to  his  task. 

When  the  time  mentioned  had  expired,  we  had  reached 
a  depth  of  five  feet,  and  yet  no  signs  of  any  treasure  be- 

20  came  manifest.  A  general  pause  ensued,  and  I  began  to 
hope  that  the  farce  was  at  an  end.  Legrand,  however, 
although  evidently  much  disconcerted,  wiped  his  brow 
thoughtfully  and  recommenced.  We  had  excavated  the 
entire  circle  of  four  feet  diameter,  and  now  we  slightly  en- 

25  larged  the  limit,  and  went  to  the  farther  depth  of  two  feet. 
Still  nothing  appeared.  The  gold-seeker,  whom  I  sincerely 
pitied,  at  length  clambered  from  the  pit,  with  the  bitterest 
disappointment  imprinted  upon  every  feature,  and  pro- 
ceeded, slowly  and  reluctantly,  to  put  on  his  coat,  which 

30  he  had  thrown  off  at  the  beginning  of  his  labor.  In  the 
mean  time  I  made  no  remark.  Jupiter,  at  a  signal  from 
his  master,  began  to  gather  up  his  tools.  This  done,  and 
the  dog  having  been  unmuzzled,  we  turned  in  profound 
silence  towards  home. 


The  Gold-Bug  107 

We  had  taken,  perhaps,  a  dozen  steps  in  this  direction, 
when,  with  a  loud  oath,  Legrand  strode  up  to  Jupiter,  and 
seized  him  by  the  collar.  The  astonished  negro  opened 
his  eyes  and  mouth  to  the  fullest  extent,  let  fall  the  spades, 
and  fell  upon  his  knees.  5 

"You  scoundrel,"  said  Legrand,  hissing  out  the  syllables 
from  between  his  clenched  teeth — "you  infernal  black 
villain! — speak,  I  tell  you! — answer  me  this  instant,  with- 
out prevarication! — which — which  is  your  left  eye?" 

"Oh,  my  golly,  Massa  Will!  aint  dis  here  my  lef  eye  for  10 
sartain?"  roared  the  terrified  Jupiter,  placing  his  hand 
upon  his  right  organ  of  vision,  and  holding  it  there  with  a 
desperate  pertinacity,  as  if  in  immediate  dread  of  his 
master's  attempt  at  a  gouge. 

"I  thought  so! — I  knew  it!  hurrah!"  vociferated  Le-  15 
grand,  letting  the  negro  go,  and  executing  a  series  of  curvets 
and  caracoles,  much  to  the  astonishment  of  his  valet,  who, 
arising  from  his  knees,  looked  mutely  from  his  master  to 
myself,  and  then  from  myself  to  his  master. 

"Come!  we  must  go  back,"  said  the  latter,  "the  game's  20 
not  up  yet;"  and  he  again  led  the  way  to  the  tulip- tree. 

"Jupiter,"  said  he-,  when  we  reached  its  foot,  "  come  here! 
was  the  skull  nailed  to  the  limb  with  the  face  outward,  or 
with  the  face  to  the  limb?" 

"De  face  was  out,  massa,  so  dat  de  crows  could  get  at  de  25 
eyes  good,  widout  any  trouble." 

"Well,  then,  was  it  this  eye  or  that  through  which  you 
dropped  the  beetle?" — here  Legrand  touched  each  of 
Jupiter's  eyes.  * 

"'Twas  dis  eye,  massa — de  lef  eye — jis  as  you  tell  30 
me,"  and  here  it  was  his  right  eye  that  the  negro  indi- 
cated. 

"That  will  do — we  must  try  it  again." 

Here  my  friend,  about  whose  madness  I  now  saw,  or 


io8  Edgar  Allan  Poe 

fancied  that  I  saw,  certain  indications  of  method,  removed 
the  peg  which  marked  the  spot  where  the  beetle  fell,  to  a 
spot  about  three  inches  to  the  westward  of  its  former  posi- 
tion.    Taking,  now,  the  tape-measure  from  the  nearest 
5  point  of  the  trunk  to  the  peg,  as  before,  and  continuing 
the  extension  in  a  straight  line  to  the  distance  of  fifty  feet, 
a  spot  was  indicated,  removed,  by  several  yards,  from  the 
point  at  which  we  had  been  digging. 
Around  the  new  position  a  circle,  somewhat  larger  than 

10  in  the  former  instance,  was  now  described,  and  we  again 
set  to  work  with  the  spades.  I  was  dreadfully  weary,  but, 
scarcely  understanding  what  had  occasioned  the  change 
in  my  thoughts,  I  felt  no  longer  any  great  aversion  from 
the  labor  imposed.  I  had  become  most  unaccountably  in- 

15  terested — nay,  even  excited.  Perhaps  there  was  some- 
thing, amid  all  the  extravagant  demeanor  of  Legrand— 
some  air  of  forethought,  or  of  deliberation — which  im- 
pressed me.  I  dug  eagerly,  and  now  and  then  caught  my- 
self actually  looking,  with  something  that  very  much  re- 

20  sembled  expectation,  for  the  fancied  treasure,  the  vision 
of  which  had  demented  my  unfortunate  companion.  At  a 
period  when  such  vagaries  of  thought  most  fully  possessed 
me,  and  when  we  had  been  at  work  perhaps  an  hour  and  a 
half,  we  were  again  interrupted  by  the  violent  bowlings  of 

25  the  dog.  His  uneasiness,  in  the  first  instance,  had  been 
evidently  but  the  result  of  playfulness  or  caprice,  but  he 
now  assumed  a  bitter  and  serious  tone.  Upon  Jupiter's 
again  attempting  to  muzzle  him,  he  made  furious  re- 
sistance, and,  leaping  into  the  hole,  tore  up  the  mould 

30  frantically  with  his  claws.  In  a  few  seconds  he  had  uncov- 
ered a  mass  of  human  bones,  forming  two  complete  skele- 
tons, intermingled  with  several  buttons  of  metal,  and  what 
appeared  to  be  the  dust  of  decayed  woollen.  One  or  two 
strokes  of  a  spade  upturned  the  blade  of  a  large  Spanish 


The  Gold-Bug  109 

knife,  and,  as  we  dug  farther,  three  or  four  loose  pieces  of 
gold  and  silver  coin  came  to  light. 

At  sight  of  these  the  joy  of  Jupiter  could  scarcely  be  re- 
strained, but  the  countenance  of  his  master  wore  an  air  of 
extreme  disappointment.  He  urged  us,  however,  to  con-  5 
tinue  our  exertions,  and  the  words  were  hardly  uttered 
when  I  stumbled  and  fell  forward,  having  caught  the  toe 
of  my  boot  in  a  large  ring  of  iron  that  lay  half  buried  in  the 
loose  earth. 

We  now  worked  in  earnest,  and  never  did  I  pass  ten  10 
minutes  of  more  intense  excitement.  During  this  interval 
we  had  fairly  unearthed  an  oblong  chest  of  wood,  which, 
from  its  perfect  preservation  and  wonderful  hardness,  had 
plainly  been  subjected  to  some  mineralizing  process — 
perhaps  that  of  the  bichloride  of  mercury.  This  box  was  15 
three  feet  and  a  half  long,  three  feet  broad,  and  two  and 
a  half  feet  deep.  It  was  firmly  secured  by  bands  of  wrought 
iron,  riveted,  and  forming  a  kind  of  trellis-work  over  the 
whole.  On  each  side  of  the  chest,  near  the  top,  were  three 
rings  of  iron — six  in  all — by  means  of  which  a  firm  hold  20 
could  be  obtained  by  six  persons.  Our  utmost  united  en- 
deavors served  only  to  disturb  the  coffer  very  slightly  in 
its  bed.  We  at  once  saw  the  impossibility  of  removing  so 
great  a  weight.  Luckily,  the  sole  fastenings  of  the  lid  con- 
sisted of  two  sliding  bolts.  These  we  drew  back — trembling  25 
and  panting  with  anxiety.  In  an  instant,  a  treasure  of  HI- 
calculable  value  lay  gleaming  before  us.  As  the  rays  of  the 
lanterns  fell  within  the  pit,  there  flashed  upwards,  from  a 
confused  heap  of  gold  and  of  jewels,  a  glow  and  a  glare 
that  absolutely  dazzled  our  eyes.  30 

I  shall  not  pretend  to  describe  the  feelings  with  which  I 
gazed.  Amazement  was,  of  course,  predominant.  Legrand 
appeared  exhausted  with  excitement,  and  spoke  very  few 
words.  Jupiter's  countenance  wore,  for  some  minutes,  as 


no  Edgar  Allan  Poe 

deadly  a  pallor  as  it  is  possible,  in  the  nature  of  things, 
for  any  negro's  visage  to  assume.  He  seemed  stupefied — 
thunderstricken.  Presently  he  fell  upon  his  knees  in  the 
pit,  and,  burying  his  naked  arms  up  to  the  elbows  in  gold, 
5  let  them  there  remain,  as  if  enjoying  the  luxury  of  a  bath. 
At  length,  with  a  deep  sigh,  he  exclaimed,  as  if  in  a  solilo- 
quy: 

"And  dis  all  cum  ob  de  goole-bug!  de  putty  goole-bug! 
de  poor  little  goole-bug,  what  I  boosed  in  dat  sabage  kind 

10  ob  style!  Aint  you  shamed  ob  yourself,  nigger? — answer 
me  dat!" 

It  became  necessary,  at  last,  that  I  should  arouse  both 
master  and  valet  to  the  expediency  of  removing  the  treas- 
ure. It  was  growing  late,  and  it  behooved  us  to  make 

15  exertion,  that  we  might  get  everything  housed  before  day- 
light. It  was  difficult  to  say  what  should  be  done,  and 
much  time  was  spent  in  deliberation — so  confused  were 
the  ideas  of  all.  We  finally  lightened  the  box  by  removing 
two  thirds  of  its  contents,  when  we  were  enabled,  with 

20  some  trouble,  to  raise  it  from  the  hole.  The  articles  taken 
out  were  deposited  among  the  brambles,  and  the  dog  left 
to  guard  them,  with  strict  orders  from  Jupiter  neither, 
upon  any  pretence,  to  stir  from  the  spot,  nor  to  open  his 
mouth  until  our  return.  We  then  hurriedly  made  for  home 

25  with  the  chest;  reaching  the  hut  in  safety,  but  after  ex- 
cessive toil,  at  one  o'clock  in  the  morning.  Worn  out  as  we 
were,  it  was  not  in  human  nature  to  do  more  just  now. 
We  rested  until  two,  and  had  supper;  starting  for  the  hills 
immediately  afterwards,  armed  with  three  stout  sacks, 

30  which  by  good  luck  were  upon  the  premises.  A  little 
before  four  we  arrived  at  the  pit,  divided  the  remainder 
of  the  booty,  as  equally  as  might  be,  among  us,  and,  leav- 
ing the  holes  unfilled,  again  set  out  for  the  hut,  at  which, 
for  the  second  time,  we  deposited  our  golden  burdens,  just 


The  Gold-Bug  1 1 1 

as  the  first  streaks  of  the  dawn  gleamed  from  over  the  tree- 
tops  in  the  East. 

We  were  now  thoroughly  broken  down;  but  the  intense 
excitement  of  the  time  denied  us  repose.    After  an  un- 
quiet slumber  of  some  three  or  four  hours'  duration,  we    5 
arose,  as  if  by  preconcert,  to  make  examination  of  our 
treasure. 

The  chest  had  been  full  to  the  brim,  and  we  spent  the 
whole  day,  and  the  greater  part  of  the  next  night,  in  a 
scrutiny  of  its  contents.  There  had  been  nothing  like  order  10 
or  arrangement.  Everything  had  been  heaped  in  promis- 
cuously. Having  assorted  all  with  care,  we  found  ourselves 
possessed  of  even  vaster  wealth  than  we  had  at  first  sup- 
posed. In  coin  there  was  rather  more  than  four  hundred 
and  fifty  thousand  dollars:  estimating  the  value  of  the  ij 
pieces,  as  accurately  as  we  could,  by  the  tables  of  the  pe- 
riod. There  was  not  a  particle  of  silver.  All  was  gold  of 
antique  date  and  of  great  variety:  French,  Spanish,  and 
German  money,  with  a  few  English  guineas,  and  some 
counters,  of  which  we  had  never  seen  specimens  before.  20 
There  were  several  very  large  and  heavy  coins,  so  worn 
that  we  could  make  nothing  of  their  inscriptions.  There 
was  no  American  money.  The  value  of  the  jewels  we  found 
more  difficulty  in  estimating.  There  were  diamonds — 
some  of  them  exceedingly  large  and  fine — a  hundred  and  25 
ten  in  all,  and  not  one  of  them  small;  eighteen  rubies  of 
remarkable  brilliancy;  three  hundred  and  ten  emeralds, 
all  very  beautiful;  and  twenty-one  sapphires,  with  an 
opal.  These  stones  had  all  been  broken  from  their  settings, 
and  thrown  loose  in  the  chest.  The  settings  themselves,  30 
which  we  picked  out  from  among  the  other  gold,  appeared 
to  have  been  beaten  up  with  hammers,  as  if  to  prevent 
identification.  Besides  all  this,  there  was  a  vast  quantity 
of  solid  gold  ornaments:  nearly  two  hundred  massive  finger 


H2  Edgar  Allan  Poe 

and  ear  rings;  rich  chains— thirty  of  these,  if  I  remember; 
eighty- three  very  large  and  heavy  crucifixes;  five  gold 
censers  of  great  value;  a  prodigious  golden  punch-bowl, 
ornamented  with  richly  chased  vine-leaves  and  Bacchanal- 
5  ian  figures;  with  two  sword-handles  exquisitely  embossed, 
and  many  other  smaller  articles  which  I  cannot  recollect. 
The  weight  of  these  valuables  exceeded  three  hundred  and 
fifty  pounds  avoirdupois;  and  in  this  estimate  I  have  not 
included  one  hundred  and  ninety-seven  superb  gold 

10  watches;  three  of  the  number  being  worth  each  five  hun- 
dred dollars,  if  one.  Many  of  them  were  very  old,  and  as 
timekeepers  valueless,  the  works  having  suffered  more  or 
less  from  corrosion ;  but  all  were  richly  jewelled  and  in  cases 
of  great  worth.  We  estimated  the  entire  contents  of  the 

15  chest,  that  night,  at  a  million  and  a  half  of  dollars;  and, 

upon  the  subsequent  disposal  of  the  trinkets  and  jewels 

(a  few  being  retained  for  our  own  use),  it  was  found  that 

we  had  greatly  undervalued  the  treasure. 

When,  at  length,  we  had  concluded  our  examination,  and 

20  the  intense  excitement  of  the  time  had  in  some  measure 
subsided,  Legrand,  who  saw  that  I  was  dying  with  im- 
patience for  a  solution  of  this  most  extraordinary  riddle, 
entered  into  a  full  detail  of  all  the  circumstances  connected 
with  it. 

25  "You  remember,"  said  he,  "the  night  when  I  handed 
you  the  rough  sketch  I  had  made  of  the  scarab&us.  You 
recollect  also,  that  I  became  quite  vexed  at  you  for  insisting 
that  my  drawing  resembled  a  death's-head.  When  you 
first  made  this  assertion  I  thought  you  were  jesting;  but 

30  afterwards  I  called  to  mind  the  peculiar  spots  on  the  back, 
of  "the  insect,  and  admitted  to  myself  that  your  remark 
had  some  little  foundation  in  fact.  Still,  the  sneer  at  my; 
graphic  powers  irritated  me — for  I  am  considered  a  good! 
artist— and,  therefore,  when  you  handed  me  the  scrap  of'1 


The  Gold-Bug  113 

parchment,  I  was  about  to  crumple  it  up  and  throw  it  an- 
grily into  the  fire." 

"The  scrap  of  paper,  you  mean,"  said  I. 

"No:  it  had  much  of  the  appearance  of  paper,  and  at 
first  I  supposed  it  to  be  such,  but  when  I  came  to  draw  5 
upon  it,  I  discovered  it,  at  once,  to  be  a  piece  of  very  thin 
parchment.  It  was  quite  dirty,  you  remember.  Well,  as 
I  was  in  the  very  act  of  crumpling  it  up,  my  glance  fell 
upon  the  sketch  at  which  you  had  been  looking,  and  you 
may  imagine  my  astonishment  when  I  perceived,  in  fact,  10 
the  figure  of  a  death's-head  just  where,  it  seemed  to  me,  I 
had  made  the  drawing  of  the  beetle.  For  a  moment  I  was 
too  much  amazed  to  think  with  accuracy.  I  knew  that 
my  design  was  very  different  in  detail  from  this — although 
there  was  a  certain  similarity  in  general  outline.  Presently  15 
I  took  a  candle  and,  seating  myself  at  the  other  end  of  the 
room,  proceeded  to  scrutinize  the  parchment  more  closely. 
Upon  turning  it  over,  I  saw  my  own  sketch  upon  the  re- 
verse, just  as  I  had  made  it.  My  first  idea,  now,  was  mere 
surprise  at  the  really  remarkable  similarity  of  outline — at  co 
the  singular  coincidence  involved  in  the  fact  that,  unknown 
to  me,  there  should  have  been  a  skull  upon  the  other  side 
of  the  parchment,  immediately  beneath  my  figure  of  the 
>carab(Eus,  and  that  this  skull,  not  only  in  outline,  but  in 
size,  should  so  closely  resemble  my  drawing.  I  say  the  25 
singularity  of  this  coincidence  absolutely  stupefied  me  for 
a  time.  This  is  the  usual  effect  of  such  coincidences.  The 
mind  struggles  to  establish  a  connection — a  sequence  of 
cause  and  effect — and,  being  unable  to  do  so,  suffers  a 
species  of  temporary  paralysis.  But,  when  I  recovered  30 
from  this  stupor,  there  dawned  upon  me  gradually  a  con- 
viction which  startled  me  even  far  more  than  the  coin- 
cidence. I  began  distinctly,  positively,  to  remember  that 
there  had  been  no  drawing  on  the  parchment  when  I  made 


H4  Edgar  Allan  Poe 

my  sketch  of  the  scarabczus.  I  became  perfectly  certain  of 
this;  for  I  recollected  turning  up  first  one  side  and  then  the 
other,  in  search  of  the  cleanest  spot.  Had  the  skull  been 
then  there,  of  course  I  could  not  have  failed  to  notice  it. 
5  Here  was  indeed  a  mystery  which  I  felt  it  impossible  to 
explain;  but,  even  at  that  early  moment,  there  seemed  to 
glimmer,  faintly,  within  the  most  remote  and  secret  cham- 
bers of  my  intellect,  a  glow-worm-like  conception  of  that 
truth  which  last  night's  adventure  brought  to  so  magnif- 

10  icent  a  demonstration.  I  arose  at  once,  and,  putting  the 
parchment  securely  away,  dismissed  all  farther  reflection 
until  I  should  be  alone. 

"  When  you  had  gone,  and  when  Jupiter  was  fast  asleep, 
I  betook  myself  to  a  more  methodical  investigation  of  the 

15  affair.  In  the  first  place  I  considered  the  manner  in  which 
the  parchment  had  come  into  my  possession.  The  spot 
where  we  discovered  the  scarabteus  was  on  the  coast  of  the 
mainland,  about  a  mile  eastward  of  the  island,  and  but 
a  short  distance  above  high- water  mark.  Upon  my  taking 

20  hold  of  it,  it  gave  me  a  sharp  bite,  which  caused  me  to  let 
it  drop.  Jupiter,  with  his  accustomed  caution,  before 
seizing  the  insect,  which  had  flown  towards  him,  looked 
about  him  for  a  leaf,  or  something  of  that  nature,  by  which 
to  take  hold  of  it.  It  was  at  this  moment  that  his  eyes,  and 

25  mine  also,  fell  upon  the  scrap  of  parchment,  which  I  then 
supposed  to  be  paper.  It  was  lying  half-buried  in  the  sand, 
a  corner  sticking  up.  Near  the  spot  where  we  found  it,  I 
observed  the  remnants  of  the  hull  of  what  appeared  to  have 
been  a  ship's  long  boat.  The  wreck  seemed  to  have  been 

30  there  for  a  very  great  while;  for  the  resemblance  to  boat 
timbers  could  scarcely  be  traced. 

"Well,  Jupiter  picked  up  the  parchment,  wrapped  the 
beetle  in  it,  and  gave  it  to  me.  Soon  afterwards  we  turned 
to  go  home,  and  on  the  way  met  Lieutenant  G .  I 


The  Gold-Bug  115 

showed  him  the  insect,  and  he  begged  me  to  let  him  take  it 
to  the  fort.  On  my  consenting,  he  thrust  it  forthwith  into 
his  waistcoat  pocket,  without  the  parchment  in  which  it 
had  been  wrapped,  and  which  I  had  continued  to  hold  in 
my  hand  during  his  inspection.  Perhaps  he  dreaded  my  5 
changing  my  mind,  and  thought  it  best  to  make  sure  of  the 
Drize  at  once — you  know  how  enthusiastic  he  is  on  all  sub- 
[ects  connected  with  Natural  History.  At  the  same  time, 
without  being  conscious  of  it,  I  must  have  deposited  the 
parchment  in  my  own  pocket.  10 

"You  remember  that  when  I  went  to  the  table,  for  the 
purpose  of  making  a  sketch  of  the  beetle,  I  found  no  paper 
where  it  was  usually  kept.  I  looked  in  the  drawer,  and 
found  none  there.  I  searched  my  pockets,  hoping  to  find 
an  old  letter,  and  then  my  hand  fell  upon  the  parchment.  15 

thus  detail  the  precise  mode  in  which  it  came  into  my 
possession;  for  the  circumstances  impressed  me  with 
peculiar  force. 

"No  doubt  you  will  think  me  fanciful — but  I  had  already 
established  a  kind  of  connection.    I  had  put  together  two  20 
links  of  a  great  chain.    There  was  a  boat  lying  on  a  sea- 
coast,  and  not  far  from  the  boat  was  a  parchment — not  a 
paper — with  a  skull  depicted  on  it.    You  will,  of  course, 
ask  'where  is  the  connection?'    I  reply  that  the  skull,  or 
death's-head,  is  the  well-known  emblem  of  the  pirate.    The  25 
flag  of  the  death's-head  is  hoisted  in  all  engagements. 

"I  have  said  that  the  scrap  was  parchment,  and  not 
paper.  Parchment  is  durable  —almost  imperishable.  Mat- 
ters of  little  moment  are  raiely  consigned  to  parchment; 
since,  for  the  mere  ordinary  purposes  of  drawing  or  writ-  30 
ing,  it  is  not  nearly  so  well  adapted  as  paper.  This  reflec- 
tion suggested  some  meaning — some  relevancy — in  the 
death's-head.  I  did  not  fail  to  observe,  also,  the  form  of 
the  parchment.  Although  one  of  its  corners  had  been,  by 


n6  Edgar  Allan  Poe 

some  accident,  destroyed,  it  could  be  seen  that  the  original 
form  was  oblong.  It  was  just  such  a  slip,  indeed,  as  might 
have  been  chosen  for  a  memorandum — for  a  record  of  some- 
thing to  be  long  remembered  and  carefully  preserved." 
5  "But,"  I  interposed,  "you  say  that  the  skull  was  not 
upon  the  parchment  when  you  made  the  drawing  of  the 
beetle.  How  then  do  you  trace  any  connection  between 
the  boat  and  the  skull — since  this  latter,  according  to  your 
own  admission,  must  have  been  designed  (God  only  knows 

10  how  or  by  whom)  at  some  period  subsequent  to  your 
sketching  the  scarabceus?  " 

"Ah,  hereupon  turns  the  whole  mystery;  although  the 
secret,  at  this  point,  I  had  comparatively  little  difficulty 
in  solving.  My  steps  were  sure,  and  could  afford  but  a 

15  single  result.  I  reasoned,  for  example,  thus:  When  I  drew 
the  scarab&us,  there  was  no  skull  apparent  on  the  parch- 
ment. When  I  had  completed  the  drawing  I  gave  it  to 
you,  and  observed  you  narrowly  until  you  returned  it. 
You,  therefore,  did  not  design  the  skull,  and  no  one  else 

20  was  present  to  do  it.  Then  it  was  not  done  by  human 
agency.  And  nevertheless  it  was  done. 

"At  this  stage  of  my  reflections  I  endeavored  to  remem- 
ber, and  did  remember,  with  entire  distinctness,  every  in- 
cident which  occurred  about  the  period  in  question.  The 

25  weather  was  chilly  (O  rare  and  happy  accident!),  and  a  fire 
was  blazing  on  the  hearth.  I  was  heated  with  exercise  and 
sat  near  the  table.  You,  however,  had  drawn  a  chair  close 
to  the  chimney.  Just  as  I  placed  the  parchment  in  your 
hand,  and  as  you  were  in  the  act  of  inspecting  it,  Wolf,  the 

30  Newfoundland,  entered,  and  leaped  upon  your  shoulders. 
With  your  left  hand  you  caressed  him  and  kept  him  off, 
while  your  right,  holding  the  parchment,  was  permitted  to 
fall  listlessly  between  your  knees,  and  in  close  proximity 
to  the  fire.  At  one  moment  I  thought  the  blaze  had  caught 


The  Gold-Bug  117 

t,  and  was  about  to  caution  you,  but,  before  I  could  speak, 
you  had  withdrawn  it,  and  were  engaged  in  its  examina- 
tion. When  I  considered  all  these  particulars,  I  doubted 
not  for  a  moment  that  heat  had  been  the  agent  in  bringing 
to  light,  on  the  parchment,  the  skull  which  I  saw  designed  5 
on  it.  You  are  well  aware  that  chemical  preparations 
exist,  and  have  existed  time  out  of  mind,  by  means  of 
which  it  is  possible  to  write  on  either  paper  or  vellum,  so 
:hat  the  characters  shall  become  visible  only  when  sub- 
ected  to  the  action  of  fire.  Zaffre,  digested  in  aqua  regia,  10 
and  diluted  with  four  times  its  weight  of  water,  is  some- 
times employed;  a  green  tint  results.  The  regulus  of 
cobalt,  dissolved  in  spirit  of  nitre,  gives  a  red.  These 
colors  disappear  at  longer  or  shorter  intervals  after  the 
material  written  upon  cools,  but  again  become  apparent  15 
upon  the  re-application  of  heat. 

"I  now  scrutinized  the  death's-head  with  care.  Its 
outer  edges — the  edges  of  the  drawing  nearest  the  edge  of 
:he  vellum — were  far  more  distinct  than  the  others.  It  was 
clear  that  the  action  of  the  caloric  had  been  imperfect  or  20 
unequal.  I  immediately  kindled  a  fire,  and  subjected 
every  portion  of  the  parchment  to  a  glowing  heat.  At  first, 
the  only  effect  was  the  strengthening  of  the  faint  lines  in 
the  skull ;  but,  on  persevering  in  the  experiment,  there  be- 
came visible  at  the  corner  of  the  slip,  diagonally  opposite  25 
;o  the  spot  in  which  the  death's-head  was  delineated,  the 
figure  of  what  I  at  first  supposed  to  be  a  goat.  A  closer 
scrutiny,  however,  satisfied  me  that  it  was  intended  for  a 
kid." 

"Ha!  ha!"  said  I,  "to  be  sure  I  have  no  right  to  laugh  at  30 
you — a  million  and  a  half  of  money  is  too  serious  a  matter 
for  mirth — but  you  are  not  about  to  establish  a  third  link 
in  your  chain :  you  will  not  find  any  especial  connection  be- 
tween your  pirates  and  a  goat;  pirates,  you  know,  have 


u8  Edgar  Allan  Foe 

nothing  to  do  with  goats;  they  appertain  to  the  farming 
interest." 

"But  I  have  just  said  that  the  figure  was  not  that  of  a 
goat." 
5       "Well,  a  kid,  then— pretty  much  the  same  thing." 

"Pretty  much,  but  not  altogether,"  said  Legrand. 
"You  may  have  heard  of  one  Captain  Kidd.  I  at  once 
looked  on  the  figure  of  the  animal  as  a  kind  of  punning  or 
hieroglyphical  signature.  I  say  signature;  because  i\s 

10  position  on  the  vellum  suggested  this  idea.  The  death's- 
head  at  the  corner  diagonally  opposite  had,  in  the  same 
manner,  the  air  of  a  stamp,  or  seal.  But  I  was  sorely  put 
out  by  the  absence  of  all  else — of  the  body  to  my  imagined 
instrument — of  the  text  for  my  context." 

15  "I  presume  you  expected  to  find  a  letter  between  the 
stamp  and  the  signature." 

"  Something  of  that  kind.  The  fact  is,  I  felt  irresistibly 
impressed  with  a  presentiment  of  some  vast  good  fortune 
impending.  I  can  scarcely  say  why.  Perhaps,  after  all, 

20  it  was  rather  a  desire  than  an  actual  belief; — but  do  you 
know  that  Jupiter's  silly  words,  about  the  bug  being  of 
solid  gold,  had  a  remarkable  effect  on  my  fancy?  And  then 
the  series  of  accidents  and  coincidences — these  were  so 
very  extraordinary.  Do  you  observe  how  mere  an  accident 

25  it  was  that  these  events  should  have  occurred  on  the  sole 
day  of  all  the  year  in  which  it  has  been,  or  may  be,  suffi- 
ciently cool  for  fire,  and  that  without  the  fire,  or  without 
the  intervention  of  the  dog  at  the  precise  moment  in  which 
he  appeared,  I  should  never  have  become  aware  of  the 

30  death's-head,  and  so  never  the  possessor  of  the  treasure?" 
"But  proceed — I  am  all  impatience." 
"Well;  you  have  heard,  of  course,  the  many  stories  cur- 
rent— the  thousand  vague  rumors  afloat  about  money 
buried;  somewhere  on  the  Atlantic  coast;  by  Kidd  and  his 


The  Gold-Bug  119 

associates.  These  rumors  must  have  had  some  foundation 
in  fact.  And  that  the  rumors  have  existed  so  long  and  so 
continuously,  could  have  resulted,  it  appeared  to  me,  only 
from  the  circumstance  of  the  buried  treasure  still  remaining 
entombed.  Had  Kidd  concealed  his  plunder  for  a  time,  5 
and  afterwards  reclaimed  it,  the  rumors  would  scarcely 
have  reached  us  in  their  present  unvarying  form.  You  will 
observe  that  the  stories  told  are  all  about  money-seekers, 
not  about  money-finders.  Had  the  pirate  recovered  his 
money,  there  the  affair  would  have  dropped.  It  seemed  to  10 
me  that  some  accident — say  the  loss  of  a  memorandum 
indicating  its  locality — had  deprived  him  of  the  means  of 
recovering  it,  and  that  this  accident  had  become  known  to 
his  followers,  who  otherwise  might  never  have  heard  that 
treasure  had  been  concealed  at  all,  and  who,  busying  them-  15 
selves  in  vain,  because  unguided,  attempts  to  regain  it,  had 
given  first  birth,  and  then  universal  currency,  to  the  reports 
which  are  now  so  common.  Have  you  ever  heard  of  any 
important  treasure  being  unearthed  along  the  coast?" 

"Never."  20 

"But  that  Kidd's  accumulations  were  immense  is  well 
known.  I  took  it  for  granted,  therefore,  that  the  earth 
still  held  them;  and  you  will  scarcely  be  surprised  when  I 
tell  you  that  I  felt  a  hope,  nearly  amounting  to  certainty, 
that  the  parchment  so  strangely  found  involved  a  lost  25 
record  of  the  place  of  deposit." 

"But  how  did  you  proceed?" 

"I  held  the  vellum  again  to  the  fire,  after  increasing  the 
heat,  but  nothing  appeared.  I  now  thought  it  possible 
that  the  coating  of  dirt  might  have  something  to  do  with  30 
the  failure;  so  I  carefully  rinsed  the  parchment  by  pouring 
warm  wrater  over  it,  and,  having  done  this,  I  placed  it  in  a 
tin  pan,  with  the  skull  downwards,  and  put  the  pan  upon  a 
furnace  of  lighted  charcoal.  In  a  few  minutes,  the  pan 


I2O  Edgar  Allan  Poe 

having  become  thoroughly  heated,  I  removed  the  slip,  and, 
to  my  inexpressible  joy,  found  it  spotted,  in  several  places, 
with  what  appeared  to  be  figures  arranged  in  lines.  Again 
I  placed  it  in  the  pan,  and  suffered  it  to  remain  another 
5  minute.  Upon  taking  it  off,  the  whole  was  just  as  you  see 
it  now." 

Here  Legrand,  having  reheated  the  parchment,  sub- 
mitted it  to  my  inspection.    The  following  characters  were 
rudely  traced,  in  a  red  tint,  between  the  death's-head  and 
10  the  goat:  — 

53«t305))6*;4826)4.)4);8o6*;48t8^6o))8s;;l8*;:t*8t83(88)5*t;46 


15  "But,"  said  I,  returning  him  the  slip,  "I  am  as  much  in 
the  dark  as  ever.  Were  all  the  jewels  of  Golconda  awaiting 
me  on  my  solution  of  this  enigma,  I  am  quite  sure  that  I 
should  be  unable  to  earn  them." 

"And  yet,"  said  Legrand,  "the  solution  is  by  no  means 

20  so  difficult  as  you  might  be  led  to  imagine  from  the  first 
hasty  inspection  of  the  characters.  These  characters,  as 
any  one  might  readily  guess,  form  a  cipher  —  that  is  to  say, 
they  convey  a  meaning;  but  then,  from  what  is  known  of 
Kidd,  I  could  not  suppose  him  capable  of  constructing 

25  any  of  the  more  abstruse  cryptographs.    I  made  up  my 
mind,  at  once,  that  this  was  of  a  simple  species  —  such,  howr- 
ever,  as  would  appear,  to  the  crude  intellect  of  the  sailor, 
absolutely  insoluble  without  the  key." 
"And  you  really  solved  it?" 

30  "Readily;  I  have  solved  others  of  an  abstruseness  ten 
thousand  times  greater.  Circumstances,  and  a  certain  bias 
of  mind,  have  led  me  to  take  interest  in  such  riddles,  and 
it  may  well  be  doubted  whether  human  ingenuity  can  con- 
struct an  enigma  of  the  kind  which  human  ingenuity  may 


The  Gold-Bug 


121 


not,  by  proper  application,  resolve.  In  fact,  having  once 
established  connected  and  legible  characters,  I  scarcely 
gave  a  thought  to  the  mere  difficulty  of  developing  their 
import. 

"In  the  present  case — indeed  in  all  cases  of  secret  writ-    5 
ing — the  first  question  regards  the  language  of  the  cipher; 
for  the  principles  of  solution,  so  far,  especially,  as  the  more 
simple  ciphers  are  concerned,  depend  on,  and  are  varied  by, 
the  genius  of  the  particular  idiom.    In  general,  there  is  no 
alternative  but  experiment  (directed  by  probabilities)  of  10 
every  tongue  known  to  him  who  attempts  the  solution, 
until  the  true  one  be  attained.    But,  with  the  cipher  now 
before  us,  all  difficulty  is  removed  by  the  signature.    The 
pun  upon  the  word  '  Kidd '  is  appreciable  in  no  other  Ian-     * 
guage  than  the  English.    But  for  this  consideration  I  should  15 
have  begun  my  attempts  with  the  Spanish  and  French, 
as  the  tongues  in  which  a  secret  of  this  kind  would  most 
naturally  have  been  written  by  a  pirate  of  the  Spanish 
main.    As  it  was,  I  assumed  the  cryptograph  to  be  English. 

"You  observe  there  are  no  divisions  between  the  words.  20 
Had  there  been  divisions,  the  task  would  have  been  com- 
paratively easy.    In  such  case  I  should  have  commenced 
with  a  collation  and  analysis  of  the  shorter  words,  and, 
had  a  word  of  a  single  letter  occurred,  as  is  most  likely  (a  or 
I,  for  example),  I  should  have  considered  the  solution  as  25 
assured.    But,  there  being  no  division,  my  first  step  was 
to  ascertain  the  predominant  letters,  as  well  as  the  least 
frequent.    Counting  all,  I  constructed  a  table,  thus: 


Of  the  character  8  there  are  33 
26 


Of  the  character  f  i  there  are  8 


4 
t) 

5 
6 


19 

16 

13 

12 
II 


O 
92 

=3 

i 


122  Edgar  Allan  Poe 

"Now,  in  English,  the  letter  which  most  frequently 
occurs  is  e.  Afterwards  the  succession  runs  thus:  a  o  id  h 
nrstuycfglmwbkpqxz.  E  predominates,  how- 
ever, so  remarkably  that  an  individual  sentence  of  any 
5  length  is  rarely  seen,  in  which  it  is  not  the  prevailing 
character. 

"Here,  then,  we  have,  in  the  very  beginning,  the  ground- 
work for  something  more  than  a  mere  guess.  The  general 
use  which  may  be  made  of  the  table  is  obvious — but,  in 

10  this  particular  cipher,  we  shall  only  very  partially  require 
its  aid.  As  our  predominant  character  is  8,  we  will  com- 
mence by  assuming  it  as  the  e  of  the  natural  alphabet. 
To  verify  the  supposition,  let  us  observe  if  the  8  be  seen 
often  in  couples — for  e  is  doubled  with  great  frequency  in 

15  English — in  such  words,  for  example,  as  'meet,'  'fleet/ 
'speed,'  'seen,'  'been,'  'agree,'  &c.  In  the  present  instance 
we  see  it  doubled  no  less  than  five  times,  although  the 
cryptograph  is  brief. 

"Let  us  assume  8,  then,  as  e.    Now,  of  all  words  in  the 

20  language,  'the'  is  most  usual;  let  us  see,  therefore,  whether 
there  are  not  repetitions  of  any  three  characters,  in  the 
same  order  of  collocation,  the  last  of  them  being  8.  If  we 
discover  repetitions  of  such  letters,  so  arranged,  they  will 
most  probably  represent  the  word  'the.'  On  inspection, 

25  we  find  no  less  than  seven  such  arrangements,  the  char- 
acters being  548.  We  may,  therefore,  assume  that  the 
semicolon  represents  /,  that  4  represents  h,  and  that  8 
represents  e — the  last  being  now  well  confirmed.  Thus  a 
great  step  has  been  taken. 

30  "But,  having  established  a  single  word,  we  are  enabled 
to  establish  a  vastly  important  point;  that  is  to  say, 
several  commencements  and  terminations  of  other  words. 
Let  us  refer,  for  example,  to  the  last  instance  but  one,  in 
which  the  combination  548  occurs — not  far  from  the  end 


The  Gold-Bug  123 

of  the  cipher.  We  know  that  the  semicolon  immediately 
ensuing  is  the  commencement  of  a  word,  and,  of  the  six 
characters  succeeding  this  'the/  we  are  cognizant  of  no 
less  than  five.  Let  us  set  these  characters  down,  thus,  by 
the  letters  we  know  them  to  represent,  leaving  a  space  for  5 
the  unknown — 

t  eeth. 

"Here  we  are  enabled,  at  once,  to  discard  the  'tk,'  as 
forming  no  portion  of  the  word  commencing  with  the  first 
/;  since,  by  experiment  of  the  entire  alphabet  for  a  letter  10 
adapted  to  the  vacancy,  we  perceive  that  no  word  can  be 
formed  of  which  this  th  can  be  a  part.  We  are  thus  nar- 
rowed into 

tee, 

and,  going  through  the  alphabet,  if  necessary,  as  before,  15 
we  arrive  at  the  word  'tree'  as  the  sole  possible  reading. 
We  thus  gain  another  letter,  r,  represented  by  (,  with  the 
words  '  the  tree '  in  juxtaposition. 

"Looking  beyond  these  words,  for  a  short  distance,  we 
again  see  the  combination  548,  and  employ  it  by  way  of  20 
termination  to  what  immediately  precedes.    We  have  thus 
this  arrangement: 

the  tree  54(^34  the, 

or,  substituting  the  natural  letters,  where  known,  it  reads 
thus:  25 

the  tree  thr|?3h  the. 

"Now,  if,  in  place  of  the  unknown  characters,  we  leave 
blank  spaces,  or  substitute  dots,  we  read  thus: 
the  tree  thr  .  .  .  h  the, 

when  the  word  'through1  makes  itself  evident  at  once.  30 
But  this  discovery  gives  us  three  new  letters,  o,  u,  and  g, 
represented  by  J  ?  and  3. 

"Looking  now,  narrowly,  through  the  cipher  for  com- 


124  Edgar  Allan  Poe 

binations  of  known  characters,  we  find,  not  very  far  from 
the  beginning  this  arrangement, 


or  egree, 

which,  plainly,  is  the  conclusion  of  the  word  'degree,'  and 
5  gives  us  another  letter,  d,  represented  by  f. 

"Four  letters  beyond  the  word  'degree,'  we  perceive 
the  combination 

546(588* 

"Translating  the  known  characters,  and  representing 
10  the  unknown  by  dots,  as  before,  we  read  thus: 

th  .  rtee  . 

an  arrangement  immediately  suggestive  of  the  word 
'  thirteen,'  and  again  furnishing  us  with  two  new  characters, 
i  and  n,  represented  by  6  and  *. 

15       "Referring,  now,  to  the  beginning  of  the  cryptograph, 
we  find  the  combination, 


"Translating,  as  before,  we  obtain 
M 

•  good, 

20  which  assures  us  that  the  first  letter  is  A,  and  that  the 
first  two  words  are  'A  good.' 

"To  avoid  confusion,  it  is  now  time  that  we  arrange  our 
key,  as  far  as  discovered,  in  a  tabular  form.  It  will  stand 
thus: 

5  represents  a 
d 
e 


The  Gold-Bug  125 

"We  have,  therefore,  no  less  than  ten  of  the  most  im- 
portant letters  represented,  and  it  will  be  unnecessary  to 
proceed  with  the  details  of  the  solution.  I  have  said 
enough  to  convince  you  that  ciphers  of  this  nature  are 
readily  soluble,  and  to  give  you  some  insight  into  the  5 
rationale  of  their  development.  But  be  assured  that  the 
specimen  before  us  appertains  to  the  very  simplest  species 
of  cryptograph.  It  now  only  remains  to  give  you  the  full 
translation  of  the  characters  upon  the  parchment,  as  un- 
riddled. Here  it  is:  10 

"'A  good  glass  in  the  bishop's  hostel  in  the  devil's  seat 
twenty  one  degrees  and  thirteen  minutes  north-east  and  by 
north  main  branch  seventh  limb  'east  side  shoot  from  the  left 
eye  of  the  death's-head  a  bee-line  from  the  tree  through  the  shot 
fifty  feet  out.'"  15 

"But,"  said  I,  "the  enigma  seems  still  in  as  bad  a 
condition  as  ever.  How  is  it  possible  to  extort  a  meaning 
from  all  this  jargon  about  'devil's  seats,'  'death's-heads,' 
and 'bishop's  hotels'?" 

"I  confess,"  replied  Legrand,  "that  the  matter  still  20 
wears  a  serious  aspect,  when  regarded  with  a  casual  glance. 
My  first  endeavor  was  to  divide  the  sentence  into  the 
natural  division  intended  by  the  cryptographist/' 

"You  mean,  to  punctuate  it?" 

"Something  of  that  kind."  25 

"But  how  was  it  possible  to  effect  this?" 

"I  reflected  that  it  had  been  a  point  with  the  writer  to 
run  his  words  together  without  division,  so  as  to  increase 
the  difficulty  of  solution.  Now,  a  not  over-acute  man,  in 
pursuing  such  an  object,  would  be  nearly  certain  to  overdo  30 
the  matter.  When,  in  the  course  of  his  composition,  he 
arrived  at  a  break  in  his  subject  which  would  naturally 
require  a  pause,  or  a  point,  he  would  be  exceedingly  apt 


126  Edgar  Allan  Poe 

to  run  his  characters,  at  this  place,  more  than  usually  close 
together.  If  you  will  observe  the  MS.,  in  the  present  in- 
stance, you  will  easily  detect  five  such  cases  of  unusual 
crowding.  Acting  on  this  hint,  I  made  the  division  thus: 

5  "'A  good  glass  in  the  Bishop's  hostel  in  the  Devil's  seat — 
twenty-one  degrees  and  thirteen  minutes — north-east  and  by 
north — main  branch  seventh  limb  east  side — shoot  from  the 
left  eye  of  the  death's-head — a  bee-line  from  the  tree  through 
the  shot  fifty  feet  out.'" 

10      "Even  this  division,  "said  I,  "leaves  me  still  in  the  dark." 

"It  left  me  also  in  the  dark,"  replied  Legrand,  "for  a 

few  days;  during  which  I  made  diligent  inquiry,  in  the 

neighborhood  of  Sullivan's  Island,  for  any  building  which 

went  by  the  name  of  the  '  Bishop's  Hotel; '  for,  of  course,  I 

15  dropped  the  obsolete  word  'hostel.'  Gaining  no  informa- 
tion on  the  subject,  I  was  on  the  point  of  extending  my 
sphere  of  search,  and  proceeding  in  a  more  systematic 
manner,  when  one  morning  it  entered  into  my  head,  quite 
suddenly,  that  this  Bishop's  'Hostel'  might  have  some 

20  reference  to  an  old  family,  of  the  name  of  Bessop,  which, 
time  out  of  mind,  had  held  possession  of  an  ancient  manor- 
house,  about  four  miles  to  the  northward  of  the  island. 
I  accordingly  went  over  to  the  plantation,  and  reinstituted 
my  inquiries  among  the  older  negroes  of  the  place.  At 

25  length  one  of  the  most  aged  of  the  women  said  that  she 
had  heard  of  such  a  place  as  Bessop' s  Castle,  and  thought 
that  she  could  guide  me  to  it,  but  that  it  was  not  a  castle, 
nor  a  tavern,  but  a  high  rock. 

"I  offered  to  pay  her  well  for  her  trouble,  and,  after 

30  some  demur,  she  consented  to  accompany  me  to  the  spot. 
We  found  it  without  much  difficulty,  when,  dismissing 
her,  I  proceeded  to  examine  the  place.  The  'castle'  con- 
sisted of  an  irregular  assemblage  of  cliffs  and  rocks — one 


The  Gold-Bug  127 

of  the  latter  being  quite  remarkable  for  its  height  as  well 
as  for  its  insulated  and  artificial  appearance.  I  clambered 
to  its  apex,  and  then  felt  much  at  a  loss  as  to  what  should 
be  next  done. 

"While  I  was  busied  in  reflection,  my  eyes  fell  on  a    5 
narrow  ledge  in  the  eastern  face  of  the  rock,  perhaps  a  yard 
below  the  summit  upon  which  I  stood.    This  ledge  pro- 
jected about  eighteen  inches,  and  was  not  more  than  a 
foot  wide,  while  a  niche  in  the  cliff  just  above  it  gave  it  a 
rude  resemblance  to  one  of  the  hollow-backed  chairs  used  10 
by  our  ancestors.     I  made  no  doubt  that  here  was  the 
'devil's  seat'  alluded  to  in  the  MS.,  and  now  I  seemed  to 
grasp  the  full  secret  of  the  riddle. 

"The  'good  glass,'  I  knew,  could  have  reference  to 
nothing  but  a  telescope;  for  the  word  'glass'  is  rarely  em-  15 
ployed  in  any  other  sense  by  seamen.    Now  here,  I  at  once 
saw,  was  a  telescope  to  be  used,  and  a  definite  point  of 
view,  admitting  no  -variation,  from  which  to  use  it.    Nor  did 
I  hesitate  to  believe  that  the  phrases,  'twenty-one  degrees 
and  thirteen  minutes,'  and  'north-east  and  by  north,'  20 
were  intended  as  directions  for  the  levelling  of  the  glass. 
Greatly  excited  by  these  discoveries,  I  hurried  home,  pro- 
cured a  telescope,  and  returned  to  the  rock. 

"I  let  myself  down  to  the  ledge,  and  found  that  it  was 
impossible  to  retain  a  seat  on  it  unless  in  one  particular  25 
position.  This  fact  confirmed  my  preconceived  idea. 
I  proceeded  to  use  the  glass.  Of  course,  the  '  twenty-one 
degrees  and  thirteen  minutes'  could  allude  to  nothing 
but  elevation  above  the  visible  horizon,  since  the  horizontal 
direction  was  clearly  indicated  by  the  words,  'north-east  30 
and  by  north.'  This  latter  direction  I  at  once  established 
by  means  of  a  pocket-compass;  then,  pointing  the  glass  as 
nearly  at  an  angle  of  twenty-one  degrees  of  elevation  as 
I  could  do  it  by  guess,  I  moved  it  cautiously  up  or  down, 


128  Edgar  Allan  Poe 

until  my  attention  was  arrested  by  a  circular  rift  or  opening 
in  the  foliage  of  a  large  tree  that  overtopped  its  fellows  in 
the  distance.  In  the  center  of  this  rift  I  perceived  a  white 
spot,  but  could  not,  at  first,  distinguish  what  it  was. 
5  Adjusting  the  focus  of  the  telescope,  I  again  looked,  and 
now  made  it  out  to  be  a  human  skull. 

"On  this  discovery  I  was  so  sanguine  as  to  consider  the 
enigma  solved;  for  the  phrase  'main  branch,  seventh  limb, 
east  side/  could  refer  only  to  the  position  of  the  skull  on  the 

10  tree,  while  'shoot  from  the  left  eye  of  the  death's-head' 
admitted,  also,  of  but  one  interpretation,  in  regard  to  a 
search  for  buried  treasure.  I  perceived  that  the  design 
was  to  drop  a  bullet  from  the  left  eye  of  the  skull,  and  that 
a  bee-line,  or,  in  other  words,  a  straight  line,  drawn  from 

15  the  nearest  point  of  the  trunk  through  'the  shot'  (or  the 
spot  where  the  bullet  fell),  and  thence  extended  to  a  dis- 
tance of  fifty  feet,  would  indicate  a  definite  point — and 
beneath  this  point  I  thought  it  at  least  possible  that  a 
deposit  of  value  lay  concealed." 

20  "All  this,"  I  said  "is  exceedingly  clear,  and,  although 
ingenious,  still  simple  and  explicit.  When  you  left  the 
Bishop's  Hotel,  what  then?" 

"Why,  having  carefully  taken  the  bearings  of  the  tree, 
I  turned  homewards.  The  instant  that  I  left  'the  devil's 

25  seat,'  however,  the  circular  rift  vanished;  nor  could  I  get  a 
glimpse  of  it  afterwards,  turn  as  I  would.  What  seems  to 
me  the  chief  ingenuity  in  this  whole  business,  is  the  fact 
(for  repeated  experiment  has  convinced  me.it  is  a  fact) 
that  the  circular  opening  in  question  is  visible  from  no 

30  other  attainable  point  of  view  than  that  afforded  by  the 
narrow  ledge  on  the  face  of  the  rock. 

"In  this  expedition  to  the  'Bishop's  Hotel'  I  had  been, 
attended  by  Jupiter,  who  had  no  doubt  observed,  for  some ; 
weeks  past,  the  abstraction  of  my  demeanor,  and  took 


The  Gold-Bug  129 

especial  care  not  to  leave  me  alone.  But  on  the  next  day, 
getting  up  very  early,  I  contrived  to  give  him  the  slip,  and 
went  into  the  hills  in  search  of  the  tree.  After  much  toil  I 
found  it.  When  I  came  home  at  night  my  valet  proposed 
to  give  me  a  flogging.  With  the  rest  of  the  adventure  I  5 
believe  you  are  as  well  acquainted  as  myself." 

"I  suppose,"  said  I,  "you  missed  the  spot,  in  the  first 
attempt  at  digging,  through  Jupiter's  stupidity  in  letting 
the  bug  fall  through  the  right  instead  of  through  the  left 
eye  of  the  skull."  10 

"  Precisely.  This  mistake  made  a  difference  of  about  two 
inches  and  a  half  in  the  i  shot ' — that  is  to  say,  in  the  posi- 
tion of  the  peg  nearest  the  tree;  and  had  the  treasure  been 
beneath  the  'shot/  the  error  would  have  been  of  little 
moment;  but  'the  shot/  together  with  the  nearest  point  15 
of  the  tree,  were  merely  two  points  for  the  establishment 
of  a  line  of  direction;  of  course  the  error,  however  trivial  in 
the  beginning,  increased  as  we  proceeded  with  the  line, 
and,  by  the  time  we  had  gone  fifty  feet,  threw  us  quite  off 
the  scent.  But  for  my  deep-seated  convictions  that  treas-  20 
lire  was  here  somewhere  actually  buried,  we  might  have 
had  all  our  labor  in  vain." 

"I  presume  the  fancy  of  the  skull — of  letting  fall  a 
bullet  through  the  skull's  eye — was  suggested  to  Kidd 
by  the  piratical  flag.    No  doubt  he  felt  a  kind  of  poetical  25 
consistency  in  recovering  his  money  through  this  ominous 
insignium." 

"Perhaps  so;  still,  I  cannot  help  thinking  that  common- 
sense  had  quite  as  much  to  do  with  the  matter  as  poetical 
consistency.  To  be  visible  from  the  Devil's  seat,  it  was  30 
necessary  that  the  object,  if  small,  should  be  white;  and 
there  is  nothing  like  your  human  skull  for  retaining  and 
even  increasing  its  whiteness  under  exposure  to  all  vicis- 
situdes of  weather." 


130  Edgar  Allan  Poe 

"But  your  grandiloquence,  and  your  conduct  in  swinging 
the  beetle — how  excessively  odd !  I  was  sure  you  were  mad. 
And  why  did  you  insist  on  letting  fall  the  bug,  instead 
of  a  bullet,  from  the  skull?" 

5  "Why,  to  be  frank,  I  felt  somewhat  annoyed  by  your 
evident  suspicions  touching  my  sanity,  and  so  resolved  to 
punish  you  quietly,  in  my  own  way,  by  a  little  bit  of  sober 
mystification.  For  this  reason  I  swung  the  beetle,  and  for 
this  reason  I  let  it  fall  from  the  tree.  An  observation  of 

10  yours  about  its  great  weight  suggested  the  latter  idea." 

"Yes,  I  perceive;  and  now  there  is  only  one  point  which 
puzzles  me.  What  are  we  to  make  of  the  skeletons  found 
in  the  hole?" 

"That  is  a  question  I  am  no  more  able  to  answer  than 

15  yourself.  There  seems,  however,  only  one  plausible  way 
of  accounting  for  them — and  yet  it  is  dreadful  to  believe 
in  such  atrocity  as  my  suggestion  would  imply.  It  is  clear 
that  Kidd — if  Kidd  indeed  secreted  this  treasure,  which  I 
doubt  not — it  is  clear  that  he  must  have  had  assistance  in 

20  the  labor.  But,  the  worst  of  this  labor  concluded,  he  may 
have  thought  it  expedient  to  remove  all  participants  in 
his  secret.  Perhaps  a  couple  of  blows  with  a  mattock  were 
sufficient,  while  his  coadjutors  were  busy  in  the  pit;  per- 
haps it  required  a  dozen — who  shall  tell?" 


THE  SIGNAL-MAN 

By  CHARLES  DICKENS 

"HALLOA!    Below  there!" 

When  he  heard  a  voice  thus  calling  to  him,  he  was  stand- 
ing at  the  door  of  his  box,  with  a  flag  in  his  hand,  furled 
round  its  short  pole.  One  would  have  thought,  considering 
the  nature  of  the  ground,  that  he  could  not  have  doubted  5 
from  what  quarter  the  voice  came;  but  instead  of  looking 
up  to  where  I  stood  on  the  top  of  the  steep  cutting  nearly 
over  his  head,  he  turned  himself  about,  and  looked  down 
the  Line.  There  was  something  remarkable  in  his  manner 
of  doing  sot  though  I  could  not  have  said  for  my  life  what.  10 
But  I  know  it  was  remarkable  enough  to  attract  my  notice, 
even  though  his  figure  was  foreshortened  and  shadowed, 
down  in  the  deep  trench,  and  mine  was  high  above  him,  so 
steeped  in  the  glow  of  an  angry  sunset,  that  I  had  shaded 
my  eyes  with  my  hand  before  I  saw  him  at  all.  15 

"Halloa!    Below!" 

From  looking  down  the  Line,  he  turned  himself  about 
again,  and,  raising  his  eyes,  saw  my  figure  high  above  him. 

"Is  there  any  path  by  which  I  can  come  down  and  speak 
to  you?  "  20 

He  looked  up  at  me  without  replying,  and  I  looked  down 
at  him  without  pressing  him  too  soon  with  a  repetition  of 
my  idle  question.  Just  then  there  came  a  vague  vibration 
in  the  earth  and  air,  quickly  changing  into  a  violent  pulsa- 
tion, and  an  oncoming  rush  that  caused  me  to  start  back,  25 
as  though  it  had  force  to  draw  me  down.  When  such  vapor 
as  rose  to  my  height  from  this  rapid  train  had  passed  me, 
and  was  skimming  away  over  the  landscape,  I  looked  down 

131 


132  Charles  Dickens 


again,  and  saw  him  refurling  the  flag  he  had  shown  while 
the  train  went  by. 

I  repeated  my  inquiry.  After  a  pause,  during  which  he 
seemed  to  regard  me  with  fixed  attention,  he  motioned  with 
5  his  rolled-up  flag  towards  a  point  on  my  level,  some  two  or 
three  hundred  yards  distant.  I  called  down  to  him,  "All 
right ! "  and  made  for  that  point.  There,  by  dint  of  looking 
closely  about  me,  I  found  a  rough  zigzag  descending  path 
notched  out,  which  I  followed. 

10  The  cutting  was  extremely  deep,  and  unusually  precipi- 
tate. It  was  made  through  a  clammy  stone,  that  became 
oozier  and  wetter  as  I  went  down.  For  these  reasons,  I 
found  the  way  long  enough  to  give  me  time  to  recall  a 
singular  air  of  reluctance  or  compulsion  with  which  he  had 

15  pointed  out  the  path. 

When  I  came  down  low  enough  upon  the  zigzag  descent 
to  see  him  again,  I  saw  that  he  was  standing  between  the 
rails  on  the  way  by  which  the  train  had  lately  passed,  in 
an  attitude  as  if  he  were  waiting  for  me  to  appear.  He  had 

20  his  left  hand  at  his  chin,  and  that  left  elbow  rested  on  his 
right  hand,  crossed  over  his  breast.  His  attitude  was  one 
of  such  expectation  and  watchfulness  that  I  stopped  a 
moment,  wondering  at  it. 

I  resumed  my  downward  way,  and  stepping  out  upon  the 

25  level  of  the  railroad,  and  drawing  nearer  to  him,  saw  that 
he  was  a  dark  sallow  man,  with  a  dark  beard  and  rather 
heavy  eyebrows.  His  post  was  in  as  solitary  and  dismal  a 
place  as  ever  I  saw.  On  either  side,  a  dripping-wet  wall  of 
jagged  stone,  excluding  all  view  but  a  strip  of  sky;  the  per- 

30  spective  one  way  only  a  crooked  prolongation  of  this  great 
dungeon;  the  shorter  perspective  in  the  other  direction 
terminating  in  a  gloomy  red  light,  and  the  gloomier  en- 
trance to  a  black  tunnel,  in  whose  massive  architecture 
there  was  a  barbarous,  depressing,  and  forbidding  air.  So 


The  Signal-Man  133 

little  sunlight  ever  found  its  way  to  this  spot,  that  it  had 
an  earthy,  deadly  smell;  and  so  much  cold  wind  rushed 
through  it,  that  it  struck  chill  to  me,  as  if  I  had  left  the 
natural  world. 

Before  he  stirred,  I  was  near  enough  to  him  to  have    5 
touched  him.    Not  even  then  removing  his  eyes  from  mine, 
he  stepped  back  one  step,  and  lifted  his  hand. 

This  was  a  lonesome  post  to  occupy  (I  said),  and  it  had 
riveted  my  attention  when  I  looked  down  from  up  yonder. 
A  visitor  was  a  rarity,  I  should  suppose;  not  an  unwelcome  10 
rarity,  I  hoped?    In  me,  he  merely  saw  a  man  who  had 
been  shut  up  within  narrow  limits  all  his  life,  and  who, 
being  at  last  set  free,  had  a  newly-awakened  interest  in 
these  great  works.    To  such  purpose  I  spoke  to  him;  but 
I  am  far  from  sure  of  the  terms  I  used;  for,  besides  that  I  15 
am  not  happy  in  opening  any  conversation,  there  was  some- 
thing in  the  man  that  daunted  me. 

He  directed  a  most  curious  look  towards  the  red  light 
near  the  tunnel's  mouth,  and  looked  all  about  it,  as  if 
something  were  missing  from  it,  and  then  looked  at  me.  20 

That  light  was  part  of  his  charge?    Was  it  not? 

He  answered  in  a  low  voice, — "Don't  you  know  it  is?" 

The  monstrous  thought  came  into  my  mind,  as  I  perused 
the  fixed  eyes  and  the  saturnine  face,  that  this  was  a  spirit, 
not  a  man.    I  have  speculated  since,  whether  there  may  25 
have  been  infection  in  his  mind. 

In  my  turn,  I  stepped  back.  But  in  making  the  action, 
I  detected  in  his  eyes  some  latent  fear  of  me.  This  put  the 
monstrous  thought  to  flight. 

"You  look  at  me,"  I  said,  forcing  a  smile,  "as  if  you  had  30 
a  dread  of  me." 

"I  was  doubtful,"  he  returned,  "whether  I  had  seen  you 
before." 

«  Where?" 


134  Charles  Dickens 

He  pointed  to  the  red  light  he  had  looked  at. 
"  There?  "I  said. 

Intently  watchful  of  me,  he  replied  (but  without  sound), 
"Yes." 

5       "My  good  fellow,  what  should  I  do  there?    However,  be 
that  as  it  may,  I  never  was  there,  you  may  swear." 
"I  think  I  may,"  he  rejoined.    "  Yes;  I  am  sure  I  may." 
His  manner  cleared,  like  my  own.    He  replied  to  my  re- 
marks with  readiness,  and  in  well-chosen  words.    Had  he 

10  much  to  do  there?  Yes;  that  was  to  say,  he  had  enough 
responsibility  to  bear;  but  exactness  and  watchfulness  were 
what  was  required  of  him,  and  of  actual  work — manual 
labor — he  had  next  to  none.  To  change  that  signal,  to  trim 
those  lights,  and  to  turn  this  iron  handle  now  and  then, 

15  was  all  he  had  to  do  under  that  head.  Regarding  those 
many  long  and  lonely  hours  of  which  I  seemed  to  make  so 
much,  he  could  only  say  that  the  routine  of  his  life  had 
shaped  itself  into  that  form,  and  he  had  grown  used  to  it. 
He  had  taught  himself  a  language  down  here, — if  only  to 

20  know  it  by  sight,  and  to  have  formed  his  own  crude  ideas 
of  its  pronunciation,  could  be  called  learning  it.  He  had 
also  worked  at  fractions  and  decimals,  and  tried  a  little 
algebra;  but  he  was,  and  had  been  as  a  boy,  a  poor  hand 
at  figures.  Was  it  necessary  for  him  when  on  duty  always 

25  to  remain  in  that  channel  of  damp  air,  and  could  he  never 
rise  into  the  sunshine  from  between  those  high  stone  walls? 
Why,  that  depended  upon  times  and  circumstances.  Un- 
der some  conditions  there  would  be  less  upon  the  Line  than 
under  others,  and  the  same  held  good  as  to  certain  hours 

30  of  the  day  and  night.  In  bright  weather,  he  did  choose 
occasions  for  getting  a  little  above  these  lower  shadows; 
but,  being  at  all  times  liable  to  be  called  by  his  electric 
bell,  and  at  such  times  listening  for  it  with  redoubled  anx- 
iety, the  relief  was  less  than  I  would  suppose. 


The  Signal-Man  135 

He  took  me  into  his  box,  where  there  was  a  fire,  a  desk 
for  an  official  book  in  which  he  had  to  make  certain  entries, 
a  telegraphic  instrument  with  its  dial,  face,  and  needles, 
and  the  little  bell  of  which  he  had  spoken.  On  my  trusting 
that  he  would  excuse  the  remark  that  he  had  been  well  5 
educated,  and  (I  hoped  I  might  say  without  offence);  per- 
haps educated  above  that  station,  he  observed  that  in- 
stances of  slight  incongruity  in  such  wise  would  rarely  be 
found  wanting  among  large  bodies  of  men;  that  he  had 
beard  it  was  so  in  workhouses,  in  the  police  force,  even  in  10 
that  last  desperate  resource,  the  army;  and  that  he  knew 
it  was  so,  more  or  less,  in  any  great  railway  staff.  He  had 
been,  when  young  (if  I  could  believe  it,  sitting  in  that 
hut, — he  scarcely  could),  a  student  of  natural  philosophy, 
and  had  attended  lectures;  but  he  had  run  wild,  misused  15 
bis  opportunities,  gone  down,  and  never  risen  again.  He 
had  no  complaint  to  offer  about  that.  He  had  made  his 
bed,  and  he  lay  upon  it.  It  was  far  too  late  to  make  an- 
other. 

All  that  I  have  here  condensed  he  said  in  a  quiet  manner,  20 
with  his  grave  dark  regards  divided  between  me  and  the 
fire.    He  threw  in  the  word,  "  Sir,"  from  time  to  time,  and 
especially  when  he  referred  to  his  youth, — as  though  to 
request  me  to  understand  that  he  claimed  to  be  nothing 
but  what  I  found  him.    He  was  several  times  interrupted  25 
by  the  little  bell,  and  had  to  read  off  messages,  and  send 
replies.    Once  he  had  to  stand  without  the  door,  and  dis- 
play a  flag  as  a  train  passed,  and  make  some  verbal  com- 
munication to  the  driver.    In  the  discharge  of  his  duties,  I 
observed  him  to  be  remarkably  exact  and  vigilant,  break-  30 
ing  off  his  discourse  at  a  syllable,  and  remaining  silent  until 
what  he  had  to  do  was  done. 

In  a  word,  I  should  have  set  this  man  down  as  one  of  the 
safest  of  men  to  be  employed  in  that  capacity,  but  for  the 


136  Charles  Dickens 

circumstance  that  while  he  was  speaking  to  me  he  twice 
broke  off  with  a  fallen  color,  turned  his  face  towards  the 
little  bell  when  it  did  NOT  ring,  opened  the  door  of  the  hut 
(which  was  kept  shut  to  exclude  the  unhealthy  damp),  and 
5  looked  out  towards  the  red  light  near  the  mouth  of  the 
tunnel.  On  both  of  those  occasions,  he  came  back  to  the 
fire  with  the  inexplicable  air  upon  him  which  I  had  re- 
marked, without  being  able  to  define,  when  we  were  so 
far  asunder. 

10  Said  I,  when  I  rose  to  leave  him,  "You  almost  make  me 
think  that  I  have  met  with  a  contented  man." 

(I  am  afraid  I  must  acknowledge  that  I  said  it  to  lead 
him  on.) 

"I  believe  I  used  to  be  so,"  he  rejoined,  in  the  low  voice 
15  in  which  he  had  first  spoken;  "but  I  am  troubled,  Sir,  I 
am  troubled." 

He  would  have  recalled  the  words  if  he  could.    He  had 
said  them,  however,  and  I  took  them  up  quickly. 

"With  what?    What-is  your  trouble?" 

20  "It  is  very  difficult  to  impart,  Sir.  It  is  very,  very  diffi- 
cult to  speak  of.  If  ever  you  make  me  another  visit,  I  will 
try  to  tell  you." 

"  But  I  expressly  intend  to  make  you  another  visit.    Say, 
when  shall  it  be?" 

25  "1  go  off  early  in  the  morning,  and  I  shall  be  on  again 
at  ten  to-morrow  night,  Sir." 

"I  will  come  at  eleven." 

He  thanked  me,  and  went  out  at  the  door  with  me.    "  I'll 

show  my  white  light,  Sir,"  he  said,  in  his  peculiar  low  voice, 

30  "till  you  have  found  the  way  up.    When  you  have  found 

it,  don't  call  out!    And  when  you  are  at  the  top,  don't  call 

out!" 

His  manner  seemed  to  make  the  place  strike  colder  to 
me,  but  I  said  no  more  than,  "Very  well," 


The  Signal-Man  137 

"And  when  you  come  down  to-morrow  night,  don't  call 
out !  Let  me  ask  you  a  parting  question.  What  made  you 
cry,  '  Halloa !  Below  there ! '  to-night?  " 

"Heaven  knows,"  said  I.  "I  cried  something  to  that 
effect—  5 

"Not  to  that  effect,  Sir.  Those  were  the  very  words.  I 
know  them  well." 

"Admit  those  were  the  very  words.  I  said  them,  no 
doubt,  because  I  saw  you  below." 

"For  no  other  reason?"  10 

"What  other  reason  could  I  possibly  have?" 

"You  had  no  feeling  that  they  were  conveyed  to  you  in 
any  supernatural  way?" 

"No." 

He  wished  me  good  night,  and  held  up  his  light.     I  15 
\valked  by  the  side  of  the  down  Line  of  rails  (with  a  very 
disagreeable  sensation  of  a  train  coming  behind  me)  until 
I  found  the  path.    It  was  easier  to  mount  than  to  descend, 
and  I  got  back  to  my  inn  without  any  adventure. 

Punctual  to  my  appointment,  I  placed  my  foot  on  the  20 
first  notch  of  the  zigzag  next  night,  as  the  distant  clocks 
were  striking  eleven.    He  was  waiting  for  me  at  the  bot- 
tom, with  his  white  light  on.    "I  have  not  called  out,"  I 
said,  when  we  came  close  together;  "may  I  speak  now?" 
"By  all  means,  Sir."    "Good  night,  then,  and  here's  my  25 
hand."    "Good  night,  Sir,  and  here's  mine."    \Vith  that 
we  walked  side  by  side  to  his  box,  entered  it,  closed  the 
door,  and  sat  down  by  the  fire. 

"I  have  made  up  my  mind,  Sir,"  he  began,  bending  for- 
ward as  soon  as  we  were  seated,  and  speaking  in  a  tone  but  30 
a  little  above  a  whisper,  "  that  you  shall  not  have  to  ask 
me  twice  what  troubles  me.    I  took  you  for  some  one  else 
yesterday  evening.    That  troubles  me." 

"That  mistake?"' 


138  Charles  Dickens 

"No.    That  some  one  else." 

" Who  is  it?" 

"I  don't  know." 

"Like  me?" 

5  "I  don't  know.  I  never  saw  the  face.  The  left  arm  is 
across  the  face,  and  the  right  arm  is  waved, — violently 
waved.  This  way." 

I  followed  his  action  with  my  eyes,  and  it  was  the  action 
of  an  arm  gesticulating,  with  the  utmost  passion  and 
10  vehemence,  "For  God's  sake,  clear  the  way!" 

"One  moonlight  night,"  said  the  man,  "I  was  sitting 
here,  when  I  heard  a  voice  cry,  'Halloa!    Below  there!' 
I  started  up,  looked  from  that  door,  and  saw  this  Some  one 
else  standing  by  the  red  light  near  the  tunnel,  waving  as 
15  I  just  now  showed  you.    The  voice  seemed  hoarse  with 
shouting,  and  it  cried,  'Look  out!    Look  out!'    And  then 
again,  'Halloa!    Below  there!    Look  outP    I  caught  up 
my  lamp,  turned  it  on  red,  and  ran  towards  the  figure,  call- 
ing,'What's  wrong?    What  has  happened?    Where?'    It 
20  stood  just  outside  the  blackness  of  the  tunnel.    I  advanced 
so  close  upon  it  that  I  wondered  at  its  keeping  the  sleeve 
across  its'  eyes.    I  ran  right  up  at  it,  and  had  my  hand 
stretched   out   to   pull   the   sleeve   away,  when  it   was 
gone." 
25       "  Into  the  tunnel?  "  said  I. 

"No.  I  ran  on  into  the  tunnel,  five  hundred  yards.  I 
stopped,  and  held  my  lamp  above  my  head,  and  saw  the 
figures  of  the  measured  distance,  and  saw  the  wet  stains 
stealing  down  the  walls  and  trickling  through  the  arch.  I 
30  ran  out  again  faster  than  I  had  run  in  (for  I  had  a  mortal 
abhorrence  of  the  place  upon  me),  and  I  looked  all  round 
the  red  light  with  my  own  red  light,  and  I  went  up  the  iron 
ladder  to  the  gallery  atop  of  it,  and  I  came  down  again,  and 
ran  back  here.  I  telegraphed  both  ways.  'An  alarm  has 


The  Signal-Man  139 

been  given.    Is  anything  wrong? '    The  answer  came  back, 
both  ways,  'All  well."' 

Resisting  the  slow  touch  of  a  frozen  finger  tracing  out 
my  spine,  I  showed  him  how  that  this  figure  must  be  a  de- 
ception of  his  sense  of  sight;  and  how  that  figures,  originat-  5 
ing  in  disease  of  the  delicate  nerves  that  minister  to  the 
functions  of  the  eye,  were  known  to  have  often  troubled 
patients,  some  of  whom  had  become  conscious  of  the  nature 
of  their  affliction,  and  had  even  proved  it  by  experiments 
upon  themselves.  "As  to  an  imaginary  cry,"  said  I,  "do  10 
but  listen  for  a  moment  to  the  wind  in  this  unnatural  val- 
ley while  we  speak  so  low,  and  to  the  wild  harp  it  makes  of 
the  telegraph  wires." 

That  was  all  very  well,  he  returned,  after  we  had  sat 
listening  for  a  while,  and  he  ought  to  know  something  of  15 
the  wind  and  the  wires, — he  who  so  often  passed  long  win- 
ter nights  there,  alone  and  watching.    But  he  would  beg 
to  remark  that  he  had  not  finished. 

I  asked  his  pardon,  and  he  slowly  added  these  words, 
touching  my  arm, —  20 

"Within  six  hours  after  the  Appearance,  the  memorable 
accident  on  this  Line  happened,  and  within  ten  hours  the 
dead  and  wounded  were  brought  along  through  the  tunnel 
over  the  spot  where  the  figure  had  stood." 

A  disagreeable  shudder  crept  over  me,  but  I  did  my  best  25 
against  it.    It  was  not  to  be  denied,  I  rejoined,  that  this 
was  a  remarkable  coincidence,  calculated  deeply  to  impress 
his  mind.     But  it  was  unquestionable  that  remarkable 
coincidences  did  continually  occur,  and  they  must  be  taken 
into  account  in  dealing  with  such  a  subject.    Though  to  be  30 
sure  I  must  admit,  I  added  (for  I  thought  I  saw  that  he 
was  going  to  bring  the  objection  to  bear  upon  me),  men 
of  common  sense  did  not  allow  much  for  coincidences  in 
making  the  ordinary  calculations  of  life. 


140  Charles  Dickens 

He  again  begged  to  remark  that  he  had  not  finished. 

I  again  begged  his  pardon  for  being  betrayed  into  in- 
terruptions. 

"  This,"  he  said,  again  laying  his  hand  upon  my  arm,  and 

5  glancing  over  his  shoulder  with  hollow  eyes,  "was  just  a 

year  ago.    Six  or  seven  months  passed,  and  I  had  recovered 

from  the  surprise  and  shock,  when  one  morning,  as  the  day 

was  breaking,  I,  standing  at  the  door,  looked  towards  the 

red  light,  and  saw  the  specter  again."    He  stopped,  with  a 

10  fixed  look  at  me. 

"Did  it  cry  out?" 

"No.    It  was  silent." 

"Did  it  wave  its  arm?" 

"No.    It  leaned  against  the  shaft  of  the  light,  with  both 
15  hands  before  the  face.    Like  this." 

Once  more  I  followed  his  action  with  my  eyes.  It  was 
an  action  of  mourning.  I  have  seen  such  an  attitude  in 
stone  figures  on  tombs. 

"Did  you  go  up  to  it?" 

20  "I  came  in  and  sat  down,  partly  to  collect  my  thoughts, 
partly  because  it  had  turned  me  faint.  When  I  went  to  the 
door  again,  daylight  was  above  me,  and  the  ghost  was 
gone." 

"But  nothing  followed?    Nothing  came  of  this?" 
25      He  touched  me  on  the  arm  with  his  forefinger  twice  or 
thrice,  giving  a  ghastly  nod  each  time: — 

"That  very  day,  as  a  train  came  out  of  the  tunnel,  I 
noticed,  at  a  carriage  window  on  my  side,  what  looked  like 
a  confusion  of  hands  and  heads,  and  something  waved.  I 
30  saw  it  just  in  time  to  signal  the  driver,  Stop !  He  shut  off, 
and  put  his  brake  on,  but  the  train  drifted  past  here  a  hun- 
dred and  fifty  yards  or  more.  I  ran  after  it,  and,  as  I  went 
along,  heard  terrible  screams  and  cries.  A  beautiful  young 
lady  had  died  instantaneously  in  one  of  the  compartments, 


The  Signal-Man  141 

and  was  brought  in  here,  and  laid  down  on  this  floor  be- 
tween us." 

Involuntarily  I  pushed  my  chair  back,  as  I  looked  from 
the  boards  at  which  he  pointed  to  himself. 

"True,  Sir.    True.    Precisely  as  it  happened,  so  I  tell  it    5 
you." 

I  could  think  of  nothing  to  say,  to  any  purpose,  and  my 
mouth  was  very  dry.  The  wind  and  the  wires  took  up  the 
story  with  a  long  lamenting  wail. 

He  resumed.    "Now,  Sir,  mark  this,  and  judge  how  my  10 
mind  is  troubled.     The  specter  came  back  a  week  ago. 
Ever  since,  it  has  been  there,  now  and  again,  by  fits  and 
starts." 

"At  the  light?" 

"At  the  Danger-light."  15 

"What  does  it  seem  to  do?" 

He  repeated,  if  possible  with  increased  passion  and 
vehemence,  that  former  gesticulation  of  "For  God's  sake, 
clear  the  way!" 

Then  he  went  on.    "I  have  no  peace  or  rest  for  it.    It  20 
calls  to  me,  for  many  minutes  together,  in  an  agonised 
manner,  'Below  there!    Look  out!    Look  out!'    It  stands 
waving  to  me.    It  rings  my  little  bell 

I  caught  at  that.  "  Did  it  ring  your  bell  yesterday  even- 
ing when  I  was  here,  and  you  went  to  the  door?  "  25 

"Twice." 

"Why,  see,"  said  I,  "how  your  imagination  misleads 
you.  My  eyes  were  on  the  bell,  and  my  ears  were  open  to 
the  bell,  and  if  I  am  a  living  man,  it  did  NOT  ring  at  those 
times.  No,  nor  at  any  other  time,  except  when  it  was  rung  30 
in  the  natural  course  of  physical  things  by  the  station  com- 
municating with  you." 

He  shook  his  head.  "  I  have  never  made  a  mistake  as  to 
that  yet,  Sir.  I  have  never  confused  the  specter's  ring 


142  Charles  Dickens 

with  the  man's.  The  ghost's  ring  is  a  strange  vibration  in 
the  bell  that  it  derives  from  nothing  else,  and  I  have  not 
asserted  that  the  bell  stirs  to  the  eye.  I  don't  wonder  that 
you  failed  to  hear  it.  But  /  heard  it." 
5  "And  did  the  specter  seem  to  be  there,  when  you  looked 
out?" 

"It  WAS  there." 

"Both  times?" 

He  repeated  firmly:  "Both  times." 

10  "Will  you  come  to  the  door  with  me,  and  look  for  it 
now?" 

He  bit  his  under  lip  as  though  he  were  somewhat  un- 
willing, but  arose.  I  opened  the  door,  and  stood  on  the 
step,  while  he  stood  in  the  doorway.  There  was  the 
15  Danger-light.  There  was  the  dismal  mouth  of  the  tunnel. 
There  were  the  high,  wet  stone  walls  of  the  cutting.  There 
were  the  stars  above  them. 

"Do  you  see  it?"  I  asked  him,  taking  particular  note  of 
his  face.    His  eyes  were  prominent  and  strained,  but  not 
20  very  much  more  so,  perhaps,  than  my  own  had  been  when 
I  had  directed  them  earnestly  towards  the  same  spot, 

"No,"  he  answered.    "It  is  not  there." 

"Agreed,"  said  I. 

We  went  in  again,  shut  the  door,  and  resumed  our  seats. 
25  I  was  thinking  how  best  to  improve  this  advantage,  if  it 
might  be  called  one,  when  he  took  up  the  conversation  in 
such  a  matter-of-course  way,  so  assuming  that  there  could 
be  no  serious  question  of  fact  between  us,  that  I  felt  myself 
placed  in  the  weakest  of  positions. 

30  "By  this  time  you  will  fully  understand,  Sir,"  he  said, 
"  that  what  troubles  me  so  dreadfully  is  the  question,  What 
does  the  specter  mean?" 

I  was  not  sure,  I  told  him,  that  I  did  fully  understand. 

"What  is  its  warning  against?  "  he  said,  ruminating,  with 


The  Signal-Man  143 

his  eyes  on  the  fire,  and  only  by  times  turning  them  on  me. 
"What  is  the  danger?  Where  is  the  danger?  There  is 
danger  overhanging  somewhere  on  the  Line.  Some  dread- 
ful calamity  will  happen.  It  is  not  to  be  doubted  this  third 
time,  after  what  has  gone  before.  But  surely  this  is  a  5 
cruel  haunting  of  me.  What  can  /  do?  " 

He  pulled  out  his  handkerchief,  and  wiped  the  drops 
from  his  heated  forehead. 

"If  I  telegraph  Danger,  on  either  side  of  me,  or  on  both, 
I  can  give  no  reason  for  it,"  he  went  on,  wiping  the  palms  10 
of  his  hands.    "I  should  get  into  trouble,  and  do  no  good. 
They  would  think  I  was  mad.    This  is  the  way  it  would 
work, — Message:  'Danger!    Take  care!'    Answer:  'What 
Danger?     Where?'     Message:     'Don't  know.     But,  for 
God's  sake,  take  care!'    They  would  displace  me.    What  15 
else  could  they  do?  " 

His  pain  of  mind  was  most  pitiable  to  see.  It  wras  the 
mental  torture  of  a  conscientious  man,  oppressed  beyond 
endurance  by  an  unintelligible  responsibility  involving 
life.  20 

"When  it  first  stood  under  the  Danger-light,"  he  went 
on,  putting  his  dark  hair  back  from  his  head,  and  drawing 
his  hands  outward  across  and  across  his  temples  in  an  ex- 
tremity of  feverish  distress,  "why  not  tell  me  where  that 
accident  was  to  happen, — if  it  must  happen?  Why  not  25 
tell  me  how  it  could  be  averted, — if  it  could  have  been 
averted?  When  on  its  second  coming  it  hid  its  face,  why 
not  tell  me,  instead, '  She  is  going  to  die.  Let  them  keep  her 
at  home? '  If  it  came,  on  those  two  occasions,  only  to  show 
me  that  its  warnings  were  true,  and  so  to  prepare  me  for  -Oo 
the  third,  why  not  warn  me  plainly  now?  And  I,  Lord 
help  me!  A  mere  poor  signal-man  on  this  solitary  station! 
Why  not  go  to  somebody  with  credit  to  be  believed,  and 
power  to  act?  " 


144  Charles  Dickens 

When  I  saw  him  in  this  state,  I  saw  that  for  the  poor 
man's  sake,  as  well  as  for  the  public  safety,  what  I  had  to 
do  for  the  time  was  to  compose  his  mind.  Therefore,  set- 
ting aside  all  question  of  reality  or  unreality  between  us,  I 
5  represented  to  him  that  whoever  thoroughly  discharged  his 
duty  must  do  well,  and  that  at  least  it  was  his  comfort 
that  he  understood  his  duty,  though  he  did  not  understand 
these  confounding  Appearances.  In  this  effort  I  succeeded 
far  better  than  in  the  attempt  to  reason  him  out  of  his 

10  conviction.  He  became  calm;  the  occupations  incidental 
to  his  post  as  the  night  advanced  began  to  make  larger 
demands  on  his  attention:  and  I  left  him  at  two  in  the 
morning.  I  had  offered  to  stay  through  the  night,  but 
he  would  not  hear  of  it. 

15  That  I  more  than  once  looked  back  at  the  red  light  as  I 
ascended  the  pathway,  that  I  did  not  like  the  red  light, 
and  that  I  should  have  slept  but  poorly  if  my  bed  had  been 
under  it,  I  see  no  reason  to  conceal.  Nor  did  I  like  the  two 
sequences  of  the  accident  and  the  dead  girl.  I  see  no  rea- 

20  son  to  conceal  that  either. 

But  what  ran  most  in  my  thoughts  was  the  considera- 
tion how  ought  I  to  act,  having  become  the  recipient  of 
this  disclosure?  I  had  proved  the  man  to  be  intelligent 
vigilant,  painstaking,  and  exact;  but  how  long  might  he 

25  remain  so,  in  his  state  of  mind?  Though  in  a  subordinate 
position,  still  he' held  a  most  important  trust,  and  would  ] 
(for  instance)  like  to  stake  my  own  life  on  the  chances  ol 
his  continuing  to  execute  it  with  precision? 

Unable  to  overcome  a  feeling  that  there  would  be  some- 

30  thing  treacherous  in  my  communicating  what  he  had  tolc 
me  to  his  superiors  in  the  Company,  without  first  bein^ 
plain  with  himself  and  proposing  a  middle  course  to  him 
I  ultimately  resolved  to  offer  to  accompany  him  (otherwis* 
keeping  his  secret  for  the  present)  to  the  wisest  medica- 


The  Signal-Man  145 

practitioner  we  could  hear  of  in  those  parts,  and  to  take 
iiis  opinion.  A  change  in  his  time  of  duty  would  come 
round  next  night,  he  had  apprised  me,  and  he  would  be 
off  an  hour  or  two  after  sunrise,  and  on  again  soon  after 
sunset.  I  had  appointed  to  return  accordingly.  5 

Next  evening  was  a  lovely  evening,  and  I  walked  out 
early  to  enjoy  it.  The  sun  was  not  yet  quite  down  when 
I  traversed  the  field-path  near  the  top  of  the  deep  cutting. 
I  would  extend  my  walk  for  an  hour,  I  said  to  myself,  half 
an  hour  on  and  half  an  hour  back,  and  it  would  then  be  10 
time  to  go  to  my  signal-man's  box. 

Before  pursuing  my  stroll,  I  stepped  to  the  brink,  and 
mechanically  looked  down,  from  the  point  from  which  I 
bad  first  seen  him.  I  cannot  describe  the  thrill  that  seized 
upon  me,  when,  close  at  the  mouth  of  the  tunnel,  I  saw  15 
the  appearance  of  a  man,  with  his  left  sleeve  across  his 
eyes,  passionately  waving  his  right  arm. 

The  nameless  horror  that  oppressed  me  passed  in  a 
moment,  for  in  a  moment  I  saw  that  this  appearance  of  a 
man  was  a  man  indeed,  and  that  there  was  a  little  group  20 
of  other  men,  standing  at  a  short  distance,  to  whom  he 
seemed   to   be   rehearsing   the  gesture   he   made.     The 
Danger-light  was  not  yet  lighted.   Against  its  shaft,  a  little 
[ow  hut,  entirely  new  to  me,  had  been  made  of  some 
wooden  supports  and  tarpaulin.    It  looked  no  bigger  than  25 
abed. 

With  an  irresistible  sense  that  something  was  wrong, — 
with  a  flashing  self -reproachful  fear  that  fatal  mischief  had 
come  of  my  leaving  the  man  there,  and  causing  no  one  to 
be  sent  to  overlook  or  correct  what  he  did, — I  descended  30 
the  notched  path  with  all  the  speed  I  could  make. 

"What  is  the  matter?"  I  asked  the  men. 

"  Signal-man  killed  this  morning,  Sir." 

"Not  the  man  belonging  to  that  box?" 


146  Charles  Dickens 

"Yes,  Sir." 

"Not  the  man  I  know?" 

"You  will  recognize  him,  Sir,  if  you  knew  him,"  said  the 
man  who  spoke  for  the  others,  solemnly  uncovering  his 
5  own  head,  and  raising  an  end  of  the  tarpaulin,  "for  his 
face  is  quite  composed." 

"O,  how  did  this  happen,  how  did  this  happen?"  I 
asked,  turning  from  one  to  another  as  the  hut  closed  in 
again. 

10  "He  was  cut  down  by  an  engine,  Sir.  No  man  in  Eng- 
land knew  his  work  better.  But  somehow  he  was  not  clear 
of  the  outer  rail.  It  was  just  at  broad  day.  He  had  struck 
the  light,  and  had  the  lamp  in  his  hand.  As  the  engine 
came  out  of  the  tunnel,  his  back  was  towards  her,  and  she 
15  cut  him  down.  That  man  drove  her,  and  was  showing  how 
it  happened.  Show  the  gentleman,  Tom." 

The  man,  who  wore  a  rough  dark  dress,  stepped  back  to 
his  former  place  at  the  mouth  of  the  tunnel. 

"Coming  round  the  curve  in  the  tunnel,  Sir,"  he  said, 
20  "I  saw  him  at  the  end,  like  as  if  I  saw  him  down  a  per- 
spective-glass.   There  was  no  time  to  check  speed,  and  I 
knew  him  to  be  very  careful.    As  he  didn't  seem  to  take 
heed  of  the  whistle,  I  shut  it  off  when  we  were  running  down 
upon  him,  and  called  to  him  as  loud  as  I  could  call." 
25      "What  did  you  say?" 

"I  said,  'Below  there!  Look  out!  Look  out!  For 
God's  sake,  clear  the  way!'" 

I  started. 

"Ah!  it  was  a  dreadful  time,  Sir.    I  never  left  off  calling 
30  to  him.    I  put  this  arm  before  my  eyes  not  to  see,  and  I 
waved  this  arm  to  the  last;  but  it  was  no  use." 

Without  prolonging  the  narrative  to  dwell  on  any  one 
of  its  curious  circumstances  more  than  on  any  other,  I 


The  Signal-Man  147 

may,  in  closing  it,  point  out  the  coincidence  that  the  warn- 
ing of  the  Engine-Driver  included,  not  only  the  words 
which  the  unfortunate  Signal-man  had  repeated  to  me  as 
haunting  him,  but  also  the  words  which  I  myself — not  he — 
had  attached,  and  that  only  in  my  own  mind,  to  the  gestic- 
ulation he  had  imitated. 


10 


THE  LADY,  OR  THE  TIGER? 1 


By  FRANK  STOCKTON 


IN  the  very 
king,  whese-kU 


olden  time,  there 


lived  a  semi-barbaric 
t  ^polished  jand  sharp- 


ened by  the  progressiveness  of  distant  Latin  neighbors, 
wofe^sfiiOarge,  flodd,  and  untrammeled,  as  became  the 
half  of  him  which  Was  bmbtfxjch  lie  was  a  man  of  e^iber- 
Mrtrfan^randrwithal  ot'an^lfctberity-^irT^ 

s-  varied  iaircies-irrte-JaetsT  He  was 


greatly  given  to  self-communing;  and,  when  he  and  him- 
selfagr£eA_Jipoa~anyJ:hmg,  the  thing  was  ^2ne.     When 
everymember  of  his  domestic"  and"  political  systems  moved 
smoothly  in  its  /appointed  course,  his  nature  was  bland 
and  geniajjmU^hen^veV.thefe  was  a  little  hitch,  and  some 
of  ruVotBs?gbt  ou;t  of  the\r/6rbits,  he  was  blander  and  more 
genialstityfor  nothing  pleased  him  so  much  as  to  make  the 
S'--ertj5oKed  str^gfa^|nd^rusb^h^^ 
U      Among"  the  borrowed  notions~W~which  his  barbarism 
rhad^bccomG  Domificd^ \Va^A~iha/frCT  tnV public  arena,  M 
I  w^ikVby  ^hibitioi^  .uf  mwly  at*d  beastly -^afor, -the 

I  minHr  nfhin  rnV.jnntn  mnrn  rnfir.^  qnr|  ^ItnrPii. 


20      But  even  here  the  exuberant  and  barbaric  fancy 
sertjcd  itself.    The  arena  of  the  king  was  builU  not  to 


the  people  an  opportunity  <hf  hearing  the  rhapsodies 
dyin^  gladiators,  nor  to  enable  them  to  view  tpe  inevita 
conclusion  of  a  conflict  betjween  religious  opinions 
25  hungry  jaws,  but  for  jpurposejs  far  better  adapte^to_wMen_ 
and  nrrHTTrvthe  mpnltnl  energies  of  the  peopl4    This^va&t 

r-Otfeef-Stbries  ";  copyright, 
Reprinted  by  permission. 


1  From  "  The  Lady,  or  the  TigeT 
1884,  1907,  by  Charles  Scribner's  Sons. 

148 


The  Lady,  or  the  Tiger? 


149 


amp 


hith 


theater^)  witji  its  encircling  galleries,  its  mysterious 
r-Ml  fe/  (mb    CbuxBB-vA  aeftt  of 


justice,  i#w0*fch      ine 

by  the  decrees  of  an  impartial  and  mcorcupt 
When  a  subject  was  accused  of  a  crime 
»|ini  i  nn  i-  in  1.  1  <  ^ee.gt  t^jring,  public  notice  was  given 


o» 

ffl\ 

iis!3 


that  on  an  appointed  day  the  fate  of  the  accused  person! 
would  be  decided  in  the  king's  arena,— *a-^ueture-jwfaidi 
•-its-Rame;  for,  although  its  form  and  pla/i 

from  afar,  its  purpose  emanated  solely  10 
from  the  brain  of  this  man,  who,  every  barleycorn  a  king, 
knew  no^raccTitioh  to  which  he  o"weci~TrtoTe  allegiance  that 
pleased  his  fancy,  and  who  ingrafted  on  every  adopted 
form  of  human  thought  and  action  the  rich  growth  of 
barbaric  "idearism^y^-'  15 

"When  all  the  people  had  assembled  in  the 
the  king,  surrounded  by  hie  court,  sat  high  uf 

i  if  n  MI  ill    Til imiiili  of  lliuucHnHii  gave  a  signal,  a 

door  beneath  him  opened,  and  the  accused  subject  stepped 
out  into  the  amphitheater.  Directly  opposite  him,  on  2c 
the  other  side  of  the  enclosed  space,  were  two  doors, 
exactly  alike  and  side  by  side.  It  was  the  duty  and  the 
privilege  of  the  person  on  trial,  to  walk  directly  to  these 
doors  and  open  one  of  them.  Ffe  could  open  cither  door  hr 


nrcurxup  tible^ 

If  he  opened  the  one,  there  came  out  of  it  a  hungry 
tiger,  me  fiercest  and  most  cruel  that  could  be  procured, 
which  immediately  sprang  upon  him,  and  tore  him  to 
pieces,  as  a  punishment  for  his  guilt.    Tke-i»Qm€»Htet~; 
tfee^ft6e-t:£thc  criminai^a&4hu3  decided,  dotcftiHroirbells"~ 
•^were-cfaTigelJrgre^  hired  mourners^ 

posted  on  the  outer  rim  of  the  arena,  and  the  vast  audience,     , 
witlLliQwrd  heads-  and  downcast  hearts, 


i  So 


Frank  Stockton 


thaTfeinj;  so  young 
have  meritea  so 


ic  accused  person  opened  the  other  door,  there 
came  forth  from  it  a  lady,  the  most  suitable  to  his  years 
and  station  that  his  majesty  could  select  among  his  fair 
subjects;  and  to  this  lady  he  was  immediately  married,  as 
a  reward  of  his  innocence.  It  mattered  not  that  he-might 


10  might  be  engaged:  upornEHi'Dbject  of  hia  own  selection:  tlig. 
subordinate  arrangements  to"inteiv 


iris  great-  scheme  of  retirbtitkmr  tirirl^reward.J 
le"exer"c1i5eS,  a^o^heother  instance,  took  place  imme- 
Itely,  and  in  the  arenaT^Another  door  opened  beneath 
15  the  king,  and  a  priest,  followed  by>arband~Df-c]j.oristers, 
anq  dancing  maidens  blowing  joyous  airs  on  golden  horns 
treading  an  epithalamic/fne^sure,  advanced  to  where 


am 


the  pair  stood,  side  by  side;jind  trie  wedding  was^promptly 
and]  cheerily  solemnized.    TThen/the  gay  brasS  bells  rang 

20  fortji  their  merry  peals,  the  people  shouted  glad  hurrahs, 
and/  the  innocent  man,  preceded  by  children  strgwjng 

"oi 

ThisN^as  the  king's  semi-barbaric  method  of  admin- 
istering jii§tice.     Its  perfect  fairness  is  obvious.     The 

25  criminal  could  not  know  out  of  wbich  door  would  come 
the  lady:  he  opened  either  he/pleased,  without  having 
the  slightest  idea  Vhether,  in/fefie  next  instant,  he  was  to  be 
devoured  or  marriecL  Op  'some  occasions  the  tiger  came 
out  of  one  door,  and  o)*\some  out  of  the  other.  The  deci- 

30  sions  of  this  tribunal  wefre  not  only  fair,  they  were  pos- 
itively determinate:  the  accused  person  was  instantly  pun- 
ished if  he  found  himself  guiltyland,  if  innocent,  he  was 
rewarded  on  the  spot,  whether  necked  it  or  not.  There 
was  no  escape  from  the  judgments  of  the  king'^  arena. 


The  Lady,  or  the  Tiger?  151 

The  institution  was  a  very  popular  one.     When  the 
people  gathered  together  on  one  of  the  great  trial  days,  ^ 
they  neverNknew  whether  they  were  to  witness  a  bloed^T 
slaughter  or\  hilarious  wedding.     This  elernentof  un- 
certainty lent  ahsjnterect  to  the  occasion  .which  it  could  not    5 
otherwise  have  abamed.     Thus,  the  masses  were  enter- 
tained and  pleased,  and  tjie  thinking  part  of  the  com- 
munity could  bring  no^^arge  of  unfairness  against  this 
plan;  for  did  not  the  accused  person  have  the  whole  matter 
in  his-owiTliands?  \  10 

This  semi-barbaric  king  had  a  daughter  as  blooming  as  •> 
hid  inujl  fluritrtuiucs,  and  ivilli  d  buUl  aa  feivenl  and  •-> 
imperious  as  mVowrt.    As  is  usual  in  cuch  cacec,  she  was  the 
apple  of  his  eye,  and  was  loved  by  him  above  all  humanity. 
Among  his  courtiers  was  a  young  man  of  that  fineness  of  i 
blood  and  lowness  of  station  common  to  the  conventional 
heroes  of  romance  who  love  royal  maidens.    ThisTTsyal — 
maife-*ss-^^ 

ffave-to-a^degree  unsurpassed  in  -all -this  king; 
hr  ImTTt-rmn  yrith  Tin  nrrlnr  tV>nf  haH  P^nmrh^ 


in  it  fn  rnaV^  i>  p-g 


This  love  affair  moved  on  happily  for  many  months,  until 
one  day  the  king  happened  to  discover  its  existence.    He 
dte-B&t  hooitatc  nor  waver  in  regard  to  hip  duty  inHfe^ 
prcm»oci   "The  youth  was  immediately  cast  into  prison,  25! 
and  a  day  was  appointed  for  his  trial  in  the  king's  arena. 
ThJsrt^oareSrwas-aa^sperially  importaa^eetaaiun,  ciiid    • 
hisj^aj^sly.,  aj  ^dl  ^  all  OIL  piupli,  \\u.^  greatly  interested  ., 
in  tho  ^Trridngs  and  JevelopmeiiL  uf  this  tiial.  —  Never"' 
^ 


TEe  dau 


te*&^*v^^ 
"hr-nrrsUglit-dcgroc,  nuvtl  and  blgrtlmg.'~ 


f  nr 


IS2 


Frank  Stockton 


mostWvage  and  relentless  beasts,  from  which  the  fiercest 
monster  might  be  selected  for  the  arena;  and  the  ranks  of 
maiden  youth  and  beauty  throughout  the  land  were 
carefully  surveyed  by  competent  judges,  in  order  that  the 
5  young  man  might  have  a  fitting  bride  in  case  fate  did  not 
determine  for  Him  a  different  destiny.  Of  course,  every- 
body knew  that,  the  deed  mth  which  the  accused  was 
charged  had  been  done,  tjte  had  loved  the  princess,  and 
neither  he,  she,  norvany/one  else  thought  of  denying  the 

10  fact;  but  the  king  wjjmd  not  think  of  allowing  any  fact 
of  this  kind  to  interfere  with  the  workings  of  the  tribunal, 
in  which  he  took  such  .great  delight  and  satisfaction. 
No  matter  how^  the  affair  turned  out,  the  youth  would  be 
disposed  off  and  the  king  would  take  an  aesthetic  pleasure 

15  in  watemng  the  course  of  events,  which  would  determine 
whether  or  not  the  young  man  tia,d  done  wrong  in  allowing 
/himself  to  love  the  princess.  \^ 

The  appointed  day  arrived.     From  -far  and  ireaE-4hg 

nnrj    ^rQj^yArj    ffr^       rffl.t         .llfTlVs    of    the 


20  ai 


ibh 


massed 


fateftdrpgrtalspSt 


uppusil- 
torriblL  in  tilth1  ju 


All  was  ifeadyr-  .  Jhe  signal  was  given.  A  door  beneath 
•25  the  royal  party  opened,  and  the  lover-et~fc3ifiDrincess 
walked  ip  tc  the  arena.  Tall,  beautiful,  fair,  hisappear- 
ance  wa^s  ^  reeted  with  a  low  hum  of  admiration^nd 
anxiety:  Half  the  audience  had  not  known  so  grand,  a 
youthhadkyed  among  them.  No  wonder  the  princess 

As  the  youth  advanced  into  the  arena,  he  turned,  as 
the  custom  was,  to  bow  to  the  king:  but  he  did  not  think 
at  all  of  that  royal  personage;  his  eyes  were  fixed  upon  the 
princess,  who  sat  to  the  right  of  her  father. 


The  Lady,  or  the  Tiger? 


153 


been  for  the  moiety  of  barbari 
able  that  lady  woirftNiot  have; 
and  fervid  souJ/wouloVVxft  all 
occasion  in  w. 
moment  that  the  deer 
should  decide  his  fate  i 
of  nothing,  night  or  ^ay,  hut 
various  subjects  connected  wi 
power,  influence,  ano/fonze  of 
had  >ever  before  %e/ux  interest 
done  wkat_no_other  person  ha 
herseM-ef  the  secret  of  the  .door 


in  her  nattffe^it  is  prob- 
there;  but  h< 

to  be  absent  on 
ly  interested.    Fi 
>ne  forth,  that 
's  arena,  she  Ijan  though! 
this  great  event  and 
:h  it.     Possessed  of  moi 
Laraeterthan  any  one  wh( 
1  in  such  a  case,  she  had  10 
done, — she  had  possessed 
She  knew  in  which  of  the 


two  rooms,  that  lay  behind  those  doors,  stood  the  cage  of 
the  tiger,  with  its  open  front,  andjnLwhich_waitedJ:he  lady. 
Tfemgir  thtsc  thick  dor^Tiea^^^curtafaedJwitii  sJaits\ 1 5 
on  tie  insid< ,  it  was  impossible  that  any  noise  or  suggestion 
from  withih  to  tnfe  person/^ly  should  ap- 
ise  tHe  latch  (ojr  one  iHhem;^ut  gold,  and  the 
will,  had  brought  the  secret  to  the 

• . - 

not  only  did  she  know  in  which  room  stood  the 
lady  ready  to  emerge,  all  blushing  and  radiant,  should  her 
door  be  opened,  but  she  knew  who  the  lady  was.    It  was 
one  of  the  fairest  and  loveliest  of  the  damsels  of  the  court 
who  had  been  selected  as  the  reward  of  the  accused  youth,  25 
should  he  be  proved  innocent  of  the  crime  of  aspiringto 
one  so  far  above  him;  and  the  princess  hated  hen 
.had  she--seef^i3i^nragme€U4haJ1^^ 
creature  throwing  glances  of  admiration  upon  the  person 
o£  her- lover,  anoTfejs^imes  she  thought  these  glancis  Vere  3° 
perceived  and  even  returned.    Now  and  then  she  had  seen 
them  talking  togetHerYit  wasjiife  for  a  moment  or  tj^o,  but 
much  can  be  said  in  a  brief-space;  it  may  have  beenxrn 
most  unimportant  topics,  but  how  could  she  know 


154 


Frank  Stockton 


had  daredjxu^aise  faei  eyes 
the loved  one  of  the  princess;  and,  with  all  the  intensity 
tha  savage  blood  transmitted  to  her  through  long  lines 
wlolly  barbaric  ancestors,  she  hated_the_j*--eni"an  who 
and  UeiiibletH^ehiad  that  sil 


len 


her  lover  turned  and  looked  at  her, 
irfei  h'Pl's  S"i  "hn  nnt  thorn  pnlrr  and  wlrtpr  thi 


nmnniin    fnrnn    oV>rmt 


that  p 


pt 


he    S&W,  -by^ 


uc     p 
on  e1  that  she  knew  behind  which  door 


crouched  the  tiger,  and  behind  which  stood  the  lady. 
VnH  pTrprrtodJaor  to-knowotA  H 


and  his  soul  was  assured  that  she  would  never  rest  until 
she  had  made  plain  to  herself  this  thing,  hidden  to  all  other 
1  5  lookers-on,  even  to  the  king.  JphetBily  hope  for  the  youth 
in  which  there  waande  based 


5T  the  success  oTtrTe  prmcessTn  discovering  this  mys- 
ry;  and  the  moment  he  looked  iirjonjier,  he  saw  she 
succeetR^aTas  in  his  soul  he  knew  she  would  sue- 
Then  it  was  that  his  .quick  and  anxious  glance  asked 
the  question:  " Which?"!  Ir-W 
errfirWi 


-Xhcrc  w« 

__  istion  was  asked  in  a  flash;  it  must  be 
25  answered  in  another. 

Her  right  arm  lay  on  the  cushioned  parapet  before  her. 
She  raised  her  hand,  and  made  a  slight,  quick  movement 
toward  the  right.  No  one  but  her  lover  saw  her. 
eye  but  his  wfls-fiYpd  nn  the  mnn  in  the  are*^ 
30  He  turned,  and  with  a  firm  and  rapid  step  he  walked 
across  the  empty  space.  Every  heart  stopped  beating, 
every  breath  was  held,  every  eye  was  fixed  immovably 
upon  that  man.  Without  the  slightest  hesitation,  he  went 
to  the  door  on  the  right,  and  opened  it. 


The  Lady,  or  the  Tiger? 


155 


Now,  the  point  of  the  story  is  this:  Did  the  tiger  come 
out  of  that  door,  or  did  the  lady? 


is 


r. 


w 


Rie  more  we~reflect  upon  this  question,  the  harder  it 
It  involves  a  study  of  tn\  human  heart 
us  through  devious  ma^es  of 
cult  to  fincLour  way.   Thi 
151011  of  line  question  d 

v  i  /•      i       i     /  .1  ^*""*>-%^i      V  /i  i         t     i^^\ 

se^i,  but  upon 

her  soul  at  a  wTul;e~tea1r^beii£ath  the"  co 

despair  and  jealousy.    She  had 

tve  hun?_ 

r^oftem-'in  her  waking  hours  and  in  her  dreams, 
had  she  started  in  wild  horror,  and  covered  her  face  with 
her  hands  as  she  thought  of  her  lover  opening  the  door, 
on  the  other  side  of  which  waited  the  cruel  fangs  of  the  15 
tiger! 

But  how  much  oftener  had  she  seen  him  at  the  other 


but  who  si 


door!    Eh 


had-sfe 


when  she  saw  his  alai't  of  iapLuious— ~^ 
deligkfe-as  •  h^ppened-the-door  of  the  ladyl   How  her  soul  20 
had  burned  in  agony  when  she  had  seen  him  rush  to  meet 
that  woman,  with  her  flushing  cheek  and  sparkling  eye 
of  triumph;  when  she  had  seen  him  lead  her  forth,  his 
whole  frame  kindled  with  the  joy  of  recovered  life;  when 
she  had  heard  the  glad  shouts  from  the  multitude,  and  25 
the  wild  ringing  of  the  happy  bells;  when  she  had  seen  the 
priest,  with  his  joyous  followers,  advance  to  the  couple, 
and  make  them  man  and  wife  before  her  very  eyes;  and 
when  she  had  seen  them  walk  away  together  upon  their 
path  of  flowers,  followed  by  the  tremendous  shouts  of  the  30 
hilarious  multitude,  in  which  her  one  despairing  shriek  was 
lost  and  drowned! 

Would  it  not  be  better  for  him  to  die  at  once,  and  go  to 
wait  for  her  in  the  blessed  regions  of  semi-barbaric  futurity? 


156 


Frank  Stockton 


And  yet,  that  awful  tiger,  those  shrieks,  that  blood! 
HeE-4eeisTDB  had  boon  indicated  in  an  inctairtrbtrtrirfaad- 
bee*«ro4e-a£te^dfty<r^^ 

She  had  known  she  would  be  asked,  she  had  decided  what 
a  she  would  answer,  and,  without  the  slightest  hesitation, 
she  had  moved  her  hand  to  the  right. 

"qiip'nfinTP'nr  In  r  iliMiinii  i.  nnr  not  tn  bn  li^htl}:^ 
~_and  it  is  notJior-ffie-^o  presume-  to  set -myself 
up  as-the  or>e-pci'soii  able  to  anawcc-it^  And  so  I  leave  it 


he 
I  T 

ik^^ 


10  with  all  of  you:  Which  came  out  of 
lady,  or  the  tiger? 


opened  door, — the 


THE  THREE  STRANGERS 

By  THOMAS  HARDY 

AMONG  the  few  features  of  agricultural  England  which 
retain  an  appearance  but  little  modified  by  the  lapse  of 
centuries,  may  be  reckoned  the  high,  grassy  and  furzy 
downs,  coombs,  or  ewe-leases,  as  they  are  indifferently 
called,  that  fill  a  large  area  <  f  certain  counties  iri  the  south  5 
and  south-west.  If  any  mark  of  human  occupation  is  met 
with  hereon,  it  usually  takes  the  form  of  the  solitary  cot- 
tage of  some  shepherd. 

Fifty  years  ago  such  a  lonely  cottage  stood  on  such  a 
down,  and  may  possibly  be  standing  there  now.    In  spite  *( 
of  its  loneliness,  however,  the  spot,  by  actual  measurement ; 
was  not  more  than  five  miles  from  a  county-town.    Y^^.~> 
that  affected  it  little.    Five  miles  of  irregular  upland  dur- 
ing the  long  inimical  seasons,  with  their  slee^,  snows,  rains, 
and  mists,  afford  withdrawing  space  enough  to  isolate  a  15 
Timon  or  a  Nebuchadnezzar;  much  less,  in  fair  weather, 
to  please  that  less  repellent  tribe,  the  poets,  philosophers; 
artists,  and  others  who  "  conceive  and  meditate  of  pleasant 
things." 

Some  old  earthen  camp  or  barrow,  some  clump  of  trees,  20 
at  least  some  starved  fragment  of  ancient  hedge  is  usually 
taken  advantage  of  in  the  erection  of  these  forlorn  dwell-v, 
ings.    But,  in  the  present  case,  such  a  kind  of  shelter*had 
been  disregarded.     Higher  Crowstairs,  as  the  house  was 
called,  stood  quite  detached  and  undefended.    The  only  25 
reason  for  its  precise  situation  seemed  to  be  the  crossing 
of  two  footpaths  at  right  angles  hard  by,  which  may  have 
crossed  there  and  thus  for  a  good  five  hundred  years. 


,  though  the  wind  up  here  blew  unmistakably  wnen  it 

)low,  and  the  rain  hit  hard  whenever  it  fell,  the  vari- 

weathers  of  the  winter  season  were  not  quite  so  for- 

I/ible  on  the  coomb  as  they  were  imagined  to  be  by 

lers  on  low  ground.    The  raw  rimes  were  not  so  per- 

,jus  as  in  the  hollows,  and  the  frosts  were  scarcely  so 

•re.    When  the  shepherd  and  his  family  who  tenanted 

louse  were  pitied  for  their  sufferings  from  the  exposure, 

said  that  upon  the  whole  they  were  less  inconvenienced 

wuzzes  and  flames  "  (hoarses  and  phlegms)  than  when 

had  lived  by  the  stream  of  a  snug  neighboring  valley. 

The  night  of  March  28,  182-,  was  precisely  one  of  the 

ts  that  were  wont  to  call  forth  these  expressions  of 

•nmiseration.    The  level  rainstorm  smote  walls,  slopes, 

hedges  like  the  clothyard  shafts  of  Senlac  and  Crecy. 

i  sheep  and  outdoor  animals  as  had  no  shelter  stood 

i  their  buttocks  to  the  winds;  while  the  tails  of  little 

•  s  trying  to  roost  on  some  scraggy  thorn  were  blown 

••':  de-oil  l  like  umbrellas.    The  gable-end  of  the  cottage 

stained  with  wet,  and  the  eavesdroppings  flapped 

nst  the  wall.    Yet  never  was  commiseration  for  the 

:)herd  more  misplaced.    For  that  cheerful  rustic  was 

staining  a  large  party  in  glorification  of  the  christen- 

•y  of  his  second  girl. 

/he  guests  had  arrived  before  the  rain  began  to  fall,  and 
y  were  all  now  assembled  in  the  chief  or  living  room  of 
dwelling.    A  glance  into  the  apartment  at  eight  o'clock 
this  eventful  evening  would  have  resulted  in  the  opin- 
that  it  was  as  cosy  and  comfortable  a  nook  as  could  be 
i -hod  for  in  boisterous  weather.    The  calling  of  its  in- 
stant was  proclaimed  by  a  number  of  highly-polished 
Kep-crooks  without  stems  that  were  hung  ornamentally 
r  the  fireplace, 'the  curl  of  each  shining  crook  varying 


The  Three  Strangers  159 

from  the  antiquated  type  engraved  in  the  patriarchal 
pictures  of  old  family  Bibles  to  the  most  approved  fashion 
of  the  last  local  sheep-fair.  The  room  was  lighted  by 
half-a-dozen  candles,  having  wicks  only  a  trifle  smaller 
than  the  grease  which  enveloped  them,  in  candlesticks  5 
that  were  never  used  but  at  high-days,  holy-days  and  fam- 
ily feasts.  The  lights  were  scattered  about  the  room,  two 
of  them  standing  on  the  chimney-piece.  This  position  of 
candles  was  in  itself  significant  Candles  on  the  chimney- 
piece  always  meant  a  party.  10 

On  the  hearth,  in  front  of  a  back-brand  to  give  substance, 
blazed  a  fire  of  thorns,  that  crackled  "like  the  laughter  of 
the  fool." 

Nineteen  persons  were  gathered  here.  Of  these,  five 
women,  wearing  gowns  of  various  bright  hues,  sat  in  chairs  15 
along  the  wall;  girls  shy  and  not  shy  filled  the  window- 
bench;  four  men,  including  Charley  Jake  the  hedge- 
carpenter,  Elijah  New  the  parish-clerk,  and  John  Pitcher, 
a  neighboring  dairyman,  the  shepherd's  father-in-law, 
lolled  in  the  settle;  a  young  man  and  maid,  who  were  blush-  20 
ing  over  tentative  pourparlers  on  a  life-companionship,  sat 
beneath  the  corner-cupboard;  and  an  elderly  engaged  man 
of  fifty  or  upward  moved  restlessly  about  from  spots  where 
his  betrothed  was  not  to  the  spot  where  she  was.  Enjoy- 
ment was  pretty  general,  and  so  much  the  more  prevailed  25 
in  being  unhampered  by  conventional  restrictions.  Abso- 
lute confidence  in  each  other's  good  opinion  begat  perfect 
ease,  while  the  finishing  stroke  of  manner,  amounting  to  a 
truly  princely  serenity,  was  lent  to  the  majority  by  the 
absence  of  any  expression  or  trait  denoting  that  they  30 
wished  to  get  on  in  the  world,  enlarge  their  minds,  or  do 
any  eclipsing  thing  whatever — which  nowadays  so  gen- 
erally nips  the  bloom  and  bonhomie  of  all  except  the  two 
extremes  of  the  social  scale. 


160  Thomas  Hardy 

Shepherd  Fennel  had  married  well,  his  wife  being  a 
dairyman's  daughter  from  a  vale  at  a  distance,  who  brought 
fifty  guineas  in  her  pocket — and  kept  them  there,  till  they 
should  be  required  for  ministering  to  the  needs  of  a  coming 
5  family.  This  frugal  woman  had  been  somewhat  exercised 
as  to  the  character  that  should  be  given  to  the  gathering. 
A  sit-still  party  had  its  advantages;  but  an  undisturbed 
position  of  ease  in  chairs  and  settles  was  apt  to  lead  on  the 
men  to  such  an  unconscionable  deal  of  toping  that  they 

10  would  sometimes  fairly  drink  the  house  dry.  A  dancing- 
party  was  the  alternative;  but  this,  while  avoiding  the 
foregoing  objection  on  the  score  of  good  drink,  had  a 
counterbalancing  disadvantage  in  the  matter  of  good 
victuals,  the  ravenous  appetites  engendered  by  the  exercise 

15  causing  immense  havoc  in  the  buttery.  Shepherdess 
Fennel  fell  back  upon  the  intermediate  plan  of  mingling 
short  dances  with  short  periods  of  talk  and  singing,  so  as 
to  hinder  any  ungovernable  rage  in  either.  But  this 
scheme  was  entirely  confined  to  her  own  gentle  mind:  the 

20  shepherd  himself  was  in  the  mood  to  exhibit  the  most 
reckless  phases  of  hospitality. 

The  fiddler  was  a  boy  of  those  parts,  about  twelve  years 
of  age,  who  had  a  wonderful  dexterity  in  jigs  and  reels, 
though  his  fingers  were  so  small  and  short  as  to  necessitate 

25  a  constant  shifting  for  the  high  notes,  from  which  he 
scrambled  back  to  the  first  position  with  sounds  not  of 
unmixed  purity  of  tone.  At  seven  the  shrill  tweedle-dee 
of  this  youngster  had  begun,  accompanied  by  a  booming 
ground-bass  from  Elijah  New,  the  parish-clerk,  who  had 

30  thoughtfully  brought  with  him  his  favorite  musical  instru- 
ment, the  serpent.    Dancing  was  instantaneous,  Mrs.  Fen- 
nel privately  enjoining  the  players  on  no  account  to  let  the 
dance  exceed  the  length  of  a  quarter  of  an  hour. 
But  Elijah  and  the  boy,  in  the  excitement  of  their  posi- 


The  Three  Strangers  161 

tion,  quite  forgot  the  injunction.  Moreover,  Oliver  Giles, 
a  man  of  seventeen,  one  of  the  dancers,  who  was  enamored 
of  his  partner,  a  fair  girl  of  thirty-three  rolling  years,  had 
recklessly  handed  a  new  crown-piece  to  the  musicians,  as  a 
bribe  to  keep  going  as  long  as  they  had  muscle  and  wind.  5 
Mrs.  Fennel,  seeing  the  steam  begin  to  generate  on  the 
countenances  of  her  guests,  crossed  over  and  touched  the 
fiddler's  elbow  and  put  her  hand  on  the  serpent's  mouth. 
But  they  took  no  notice,  and  fearing  she  might  lose  her 
character  of  genial  hostess  if  she  were  to  interfere  too  10 
markedly,  she  retired  and  sat  down  helpless.  And  so  the 
dance  whizzed  on  with  cumulative  fury,  the  performers 
moving  in  their  planet-like  courses,  direct  and  retrograde, 
from  apogee  to  perigee,  till  the  hand  of  the  well-kicked 
clock  at  the  bottom  of  the  room  had  traveled  over  the  cir-  15 
cumference  of  an  hour. 

While  these  cheerful  events  were  in  course  of  enactment 
within  Fennel's  pastoral  dwelling,  an  incident  having  con- 
siderable bearing  on  the  party  had  occurred  in  the  gloomy 
night  without.    Mrs.  Fennel's  concern  about  the  growing  20 
fierceness  of  the  dance  corresponded  in  point  of  time  with 
the  ascent  of  a  human  figure  to  the  solitary  hill  of  Higher 
Crowstairs  from  the  direction  of  the  distant  town.    This 
personage  strode  on  through  the  rain  without  a  pause,  fol- 
lowing the  little-worn  path  which,  further  on  in  its  course,  25 
skirted  the  shepherd's  cottage. 

It  was  nearly  the  time  of  full  moon,  and  on  this  account, 
though  the  sky  was  lined  with  a  uniform  sheet  of  dripping 
cloud,  ordinary  objects  out  of  doors  were  readily  visible. 
The  sad  wan  light  revealed  the  lonely  pedestrian  to  be  a  30 
man  of  supple  frame ;  his  gait  suggested  that  he  had  some- 
what passed  the  period  of  perfect  and  instinctive  agility, 
though  not  so  far  as  to  be  otherwise  than  rapid  of  motion 
when  occasion  required.  At  a  rough  guess,  he  might  have 


1 62  Thomas  Hardy 

been  about  forty  years  of  age.  He  appeared  tall,  but  a 
recruiting  sergeant,  or  other  person  accustomed  to  the 
judging  of  men's  heights  by  the  eye,  would  have  discerned 
that  this  was  chiefly  owing  to  his  gauntness,  and  that  he 

5  was  not  more  than  five-feet-eight  or  nine. 

Notwithstanding  the  regularity  of  his  tread,  there  was 
caution  in  it,  as  in  that  of  one  who  mentally  feels  his  way; 
and  despite  the  fact  that  it  was  not  a  black  coat  nor  a  dark 
garment  of  any  sort  that  he  wore,  there  was  something 

10  about  him  which  suggested  that  he  naturally  belonged  to 
the  black-coated  tribes  of  men.  His  clothes  were  of  fustian, 
and  his  boots  hobnailed,  yet  in  his  progress  he  showed  not 
the  mud-accustomed  bearing  of  hobnailed  and  fustianed 
peasantry. 

15  By  the  time  that  he  had  arrived  abreast  of  the  shep- 
herd's premises  the  rain  came  down,  or  rather  came  along, 
with  yet  more  determined  violence.  The  outskirts  of  the 
little  settlement  partially  broke  the  force  of  wind  and  rain, 
and  this  induced  him  to  stand  still.  The  most  salient  of  the 

20  shepherd's  domestic  erections  was  an  empty  sty  at  the  for- 
ward corner  of  his  hedgeless  garden,  for  in  these  latitudes 
the  principle  of  masking  the  homelier  features  of  your  es- 
tablishment by  a  conventional  frontage  was  unknown. 
The  traveler's  eye  was  attracted  to  this  small  building  by 

25  the  pallid  shine  of  the  wet  slates  that  covered  it.  He 
turned  aside,  and,  finding  it  empty,  stood  under  the  pent- 
roof  for  shelter. 

While  he  stood,  the  boom  of  the  serpent  within  the  ad- 
jacent house,  and  the  lesser  strains  of  the  fiddler,  reached 

30  the  spot  as  an  accompaniment  to  the  surging  hiss  of  the 
flying  rain  on  the  sod,  its  louder  beating  on  the  cabbage- 
leaves  of  the  garden,  on  the  eight  or  ten  beehives  just  dis- 
cernible by  the  path,  and  its  dripping  from  the  eaves  into 
a  row  of  buckets  and  pans  that  had  been  placed  under  the 


The  Three  Strangers  163 

walls  of  the  cottage.  For  at  Higher  Crowstairs,  as  at  all 
such  elevated  domiciles,  the  grand  difficulty  of  housekeep- 
ing was  an  insufficiency  of  water;  and  a  casual  rainfall  was 
utilized  by  turning  out,  as  catchers,  every  utensil  that  the 
house  contained.  Some  queer  stories  might  be  told  of  the  5 
contrivances  for  economy  in  suds  and  dish-waters  that  are 
absolutely  necessitated  in  upland  habitations  during  the 
droughts  of  summer.  But  at  this  season  there  were  no 
such  exigencies;  a  mere  acceptance  of  what  the  skies  be- 
stowed was  sufficient  for  an  abundant  store.  10 

At  last  the  notes  of  the  serpent  ceased  and  the  house 
was  silent.  This  cessation  of  activity  aroused  the  solitary 
pedestrian  from  the  reverie  into  which  he  had  lapsed,  and, 
emerging  from  the  shed,  with  an  apparently  new  intention, 
he  walked  up  the  path  to  the  house-door.  Arrived  here,  15 
his  first  act  was  to  kneel  down  on  a  large  stone  beside  the 
row  of  vessels,  and  to  drink  a  copious  draught  from  one  of 
them.  Having  quenched  his  thirst  he  rose  and  lifted  his 
hand  to  knock,  but  paused  with  his  eye  upon  the  panel. 
Since  the  dark  surface  of  the  wood  revealed  absolutely  20 
nothing,  it  was  evident  that  he  must  be  mentally  looking 
through  the  door,  as  if  he  wished  to  measure  thereby  all 
the  possibilities  that  a  house  of  this  sort  might  include, 
and  how  they  might  bear  upon  the  question  of  his  entry. 

In  his  indecision  he  turned  and  surveyed  the  scene  25 
around.    Not  a  soul  was  anywhere  visible.    The  garden- 
path  stretched  downward  from  his  feet,  gleaming  like  the 
track  of  a  snail;  the  roof  of  the  little  well  (mostly  dry),  the 
well-cover,  the  top  rail  of  the  garden-gate,  were  varnished 
with  the  same  dull  liquid  glaze;  while,  far  away  in  the  vale,  30 
a  faint  whiteness  of  more  than  usual  extent  showed  that 
the  rivers  were  high  in  the  meads.    Beyond  all  this  winked 
a  few  bleared  lamplights  through  the  beating  drops — lights 
that  denoted  the  situation  of  the  county-town  from  which 


164  Thomas  Hardy 

he  had  appeared  to  come.  The  absence  of  all  notes  of  life 
in  that  direction  seemed  to  clinch  his  intentions,  and  he 
knocked  at  the  door. 

Within,  a  desultory  chat  had  taken  the  place  of  move- 
5  ment  and  musical  sound.    The  hedge-carpenter  was  sug- 
gesting a  song  to  the  company,  which  nobody  just  then 
was  inclined  to  undertake,  so  that  the  knock  afforded  a 
not  unwelcome  diversion. 

"Walk  in!"  said  the  shepherd  promptly. 
10      The  latch  clicked  upward,  and  out  of  the  night  our 
pedestrian  appeared  upon  the  door-mat.    The  shepherd 
arose,  snuffed  two  of  the  nearest  candles,  and  turned  to 
look  at  him. 

Their  light  disclosed  that  the  stranger  was  dark  in  com- 

15  plexion  and  not  unprepossessing  as  to  feature.    His  hat, 

which  for  a  moment  he  did  not  remove,  hung  low  over 

his  eyes,  without  concealing  that  they  were  large,  open, 

and  determined,  moving  with  a  flash  rather  than  a  glance 

round  the  room.    He  seemed  pleased  with  his  survey,  and, 

20  baring  his  shaggy  head,  said,  in  a  rich  deep  voice,  "The 

rain  is  so  heavy,  friends,  that  I  ask  leave  to  come  in  and 

rest  awhile." 

"To  be  sure,  stranger,"  said  the  shepherd.    "And  fait1., 

you've  been  lucky  in  choosing  your  time,  for  we  are  hav- 

25  ing  a  bit  of  a  fling  for  a  glad  cause — though,  to  be  sure, 

a  man  could  hardly  wish  that  glad  cause  to  happen  more 

than  once  a  year." 

"Nor  less,"  spoke  up  a  woman.    "For  'tis  best  to  get 
your  family  over  and  done  with,  as  soon  as  you  can,  so 
30  as  to  be  all  the  earlier  out  of  the  fag  o't." 

"And  what  may  be  this  glad  cause?  "  asked  the  stranger. 

"A  birth  and  christening,"  said  the  shepherd. 

The  stranger  hoped  his  host  might  not  be  made  unhappy 
either  by  too  many  or  too  few  of  such  episodes,  and  being 


The  Three  Strangers  165 

invited  by  a  gesture  to  a  pull  at  the  mug,  he  readily  ac- 
quiesced. His  manner,  which,  before  entering,  had  been  so 
dubious,  was  now  altogether  that  of  a  careless  and  candid 
man. 

"Late  to  be  traipsing  athwart  this  coomb — hey?"  said  5 
the  engaged  man  of  fifty. 

"Late  it  is,  master,  as  you  say. — I'll  take  a  seat  in  the 
chimney-corner,  if  you  have  nothing  to  urge  against  it, 
ma'am;  for  I  am  a  little  moist  on  the  side  that  was  next 
the  rain."  10 

Mrs.  Shepherd  Fennel  assented,  and  made  room  for  the 
self-invited  comer,  who,  having  got  completely  inside  the 
chimney-corner,  stretched  out  his  legs  and  his  arms  with 
the  expansiveness  of  a  person  quite  at  home. 

"Yes,  I  am  rather  cracked  in  the  vamp,"  he  said  freely,  15 
seeing  that  the  eyes  of  the  shepherd's  wife  fell  upon  his 
boots,  "and  I  am  not  well  fitted  either.  I  have  had  some 
rough  times  lately,  and  have  been  forced  to  pick  up  what 
I  can  get  in  the  way  of  wearing,  but  I  must  find  a  suit 
better  fit  for  working-days  when  I  reach  home."  20 

"One  of  hereabouts?"  she  inquired. 

"Not  quite  that — further  up  the  country." 

"I  thought  so.  And  so  be  I;  and  by  your  tongue  you 
come  from  my  neighborhood." 

"But  you  would  hardly  have  heard  of  me,"  he  said  25 
quickly.    "My  time  would  be  long  before  yours,  ma'am, 
you  see." 

This  testimony  to  the  youthfulness  of  his  hostess  had 
the  effect  of  stopping  her  cross-examination. 

"There  is  only  one  thing  more  wanted  to  make  me  30 
happy,"  continued  the  new-comer.    "And  that  is  a  little 
baccy,  which  I  am  sorry  to  say  I  am  out  of." 

"I'll  fill  your  pipe,"  said  the  shepherd. 

"I  must  ask  you  to  lend  me  a  pipe  likewise." 


1 66  Thomas  Hardy 

"A  smoker,  and  no  pipe  about  'ee?" 
"I  have  dropped  it  somewhere  on  the  road." 
The  shepherd  filled  and  handed  him  a  new  clay  pipe, 
saying,  as  he  did  so,  "Hand  me  your  baccy-box — I'll  fill 
5  that  too,  now  I  am  about  it." 

The  man  went  through  the  movement  of  searching  his 
pockets. 

"Lost  that  too?"  said  his  entertainer,  with  some  sur- 
prise. 

10  "I  am  afraid  so,"  said  the  man  with  some  confusion. 
"  Give  it  to  me  in  a  screw  of  paper."  Lighting  his  pipe  at 
the  candle  with  a  suction  that  drew  the  whole  flame  into 
the  bowl,  he  resettled  himself  in  the  corner  and  bent  hi? 
looks  upon  the  faint  steam  from  his  damp  legs,  as  if  he 
15  wished  to  say  no  more. 

Meanwhile  the  general  body  of  guests  had  been  taking 
little  notice  of  this  visitor  by  reason  of  an  absorbing  dis- 
cussion in  which  they  were  engaged  with  the  band  about 
a  tune  for  the  next  dance.  The  matter  being  settled,  they 
20  were  about  to  stand  up  when  an  interruption  came  in  the 
shape  of  another  knock  at  the  door. 

At  sound  of  the  same  the  man  in  the  chimney-corner 
took  up  the  poker  and  began  stirring  the  brands  as  if  do- 
ing it  thoroughly  were  the  one  aim  of  his  existence;  and 
25  a  second  time  the  shepherd  said,  "Walk  in ! "  In  a  moment 
another  man  stood  upon  the  straw-woven  door-mat.  He 
too  was  a  stranger. 

This  individual  was  one  of  a  type  radically  different 
from  the  first.  There  was  more  of  the  commonplace  in 
30  his  manner,  and  a  certain  jovial  cosmopolitanism  sat  upon 
his  features.  He  was  several  years  older  than  the  first 
arrival,  his  hair  being  slightly  frosted,  his  eyebrows  bristly, 
and  his  whiskers  cut  back  from  his  cheeks.  His  face  was 
rather  full  and  flabby,  and  yet  it  was  not  altogether  a  face 


The  Three  Strangers  167 

without  power.  A  few  grog-blossoms  marked  the  neigh- 
borhood of  his  nose.  He  flung  back  his  long  drab  great- 
coat, revealing  that  beneath  it  he  wore  a  suit  of  cinder-gray 
shade  throughout,  large  heavy  seals,  of  some  metal  or 
other  that  would  take  a  polish,  dangling  from  his  fob  as  his  5 
only  personal  ornament.  Shaking  the  water-drops  from 
his  low-crowned  glazed  hat,  he  said,  "I  must  ask  for  a  few 
minutes'  shelter,  comrades,  or  I  shall  be  wetted  to  my 
skin  before  I  get  to  Casterbridge." 

"Make  yourself  at  home,  master,"  said  the  shepherd,  10 
perhaps  a  trifle  less  heartily  than  on  the  first  occasion. 
Not  that  Fennel  had  the  least  tinge  of  niggardliness  in  his 
composition ;  but  the  room  was  far  from  large,  spare  chairs 
were  not  numerous,  and  damp  companions  were  not  alto- 
gether desirable  at  close  quarters  for  the  women  and  girls  15 
in  their  bright-colored  gowns. 

However,  the  second  comer,  after  taking  off  his  great- 
coat, and  hanging  his  hat  on  a  nail  in  one  of  the  ceiling- 
beams  as  if  he  had  been  specially  invited  to  put  it  there, 
advanced  and  sat  down  at  the  table.   This  had  been  pushed  20 
so  closely  into  the  chimney-corner,  to  give  all  available 
room  to  the  dancers,  that  its  inner  edge  grazed  the  elbow 
of  the  man  who  had  ensconced  himself  by  the  fire;  and 
thus  the  two  strangers  were  brought  into  close  companion- 
ship.   They  nodded  to  each  other  by  way  of  breaking  the  25 
ice  of  unacquaintance,  and  the  first  stranger  handed  his 
neighbor  the  family  mug — a  huge  vessel  of  brown  ware, 
having  its  upper  edge  worn  away  like  a  threshold  by  the 
rub  of  whole  generations  of  thirsty  lips  that  had  gone  the 
way  of  all  flesh,  and  bearing  the  following  inscription  30 
burnt  upon  its  rotund  side  in  yellow  letters: — 

THERE  IS   NO   FUN 

PNTILL  i  CUM. 


168  Thomas  Hardy 

The  other  man,  nothing  loth,  raised  the  mug  .to  his  lips, 
and  drank  on,  and  on,  and  on— till  a  curious  blueness 
overspread  the  countenance  of  the  shepherd's  wife,  who 
had  regarded  with  no  little  surprise  the  first  stranger's 

5  free  offer  to  the  second  of  what  did  not  belong  to  him 
to  dispense. 

"I  knew  it!"  said  the  toper  to  the  shepherd  with  much 
satisfaction.  "  When  I  walked  up  your  garden  before  com- 
ing in,  and  saw  the  hives  all  of  a  row,  I  said  to  myself, 

10  'Where  there's  bees  there's  honey,  and  where  there's 
honey  there's  mead.'  But  mead  of  such  a  truly  comfort- 
able sort  as  this  I  really  didn't  expect  to  meet  in  my  older 
days."  He  took  yet  another  pull  at  the  mug,  till  it  assumed 
an  ominous  elevation. 

15      "Glad  you  enjoy  it!"  said  the  shepherd  warmly. 

"It  is  goodish  mead,"  assented  Mrs.  Fennel,  with  an 
absence  of  enthusiasm  which  seemed  to  say  that  it  was 
possible  to  buy  praise  for  one's  cellar  at  too  heavy  a  price. 
"It  is  trouble  enough  to  make — and  really  I  hardly  think 

20  we  shall  make  any  more.  For  honey  sells  well,  and  we 
ourselves  can  make  shift  with  a  drop  o'  small  mead  and 
metheglin  for  common  use  from  the  comb-washings." 

"O,  but  you'll  never  have  the  heart!"  reproachfully 
cried  the  stranger  in  cinder-gray,  after  taking  up  the  mug 

25  a  third  time  and  setting  it  down  empty.  "I  love  mead, 
when  'tis  old  like  this,  as  I  love  to  go  to  church  o'  Sundays, 
or  to  relieve  the  needy  any  day  of  the  week." 

"Ha,  ha,  ha!"  said  the  man  in  the  chimney-corner,  who 
in  spite  of  the  taciturnity  induced  by  the  pipe  of  tobacco, 

30  could  not  or  would  not  refrain  from  this  slight  testimony 
to  his  comrade's  humor. 

Now  the  old  mead  of  those  days,  brewed  of  the  purest 
first-year  or  maiden  honey,  four  pounds  to  the  gallon — 
with  its  due  complement  of  white  of  eggs,  cinnamon,  gin- 


The  Three  Strangers  169 

ger,  cloves,  mace,  rosemary,  yeast,  and  processes  of  work- 
ing, bottling,  and  cellaring — tasted  remarkably  strong; 
but  it  did  not  taste  so  strong  as  it  actually  was.  Hence, 
presently,  the  stranger  in  cinder-gray  at  the  table,  moved 
by  its  creeping  influence,  unbuttoned  his  waistcoat,  threw  5 
himself  back  in  his  chair,  spread  his  legs,  and  made  his 
presence  felt  in  various  ways. 

"Well,  well,  as  I  say,"  he  resumed,  "I  am  going  to 
Casterbridge,  and  to  Casterbridge  I  must  go.    I  should 
have  been  almost  there  by  this  time;  but  the  rain  drove  10 
me  into  your  dwelling,  and  I'm  not  sorry  for  it." 

"You  don't  live  in  Casterbridge?"  said  the  shepherd. 

"Not  as  yet;  though  I  shortly  mean  to  move  there." 

"Going  to  set  up  in  trade,  perhaps?" 

"No,  no,"  said  the  shepherd's  wife.    "It  is  easy  to  see  15 
that  the  gentleman  is  rich,  and  don't  want  to  work  at 
anything." 

The  cinder-gray  stranger  paused,  as  if  to  consider 
whether  he  would  accept  that  definition  of  himself.  He 
presently  rejected  it  by  answering,  "Rich  is  not  quite  the  20 
word  for  me,  dame.  I  do  work,  and  I  must  work.  And 
even  if  I  only  get  to  Casterbridge  by  midnight  I  must 
begin  work  there  at  eight  to-morrow  morning.  Yes,  het 
or  wet,  blow  or  snow,  famine  or  sword,  my  day's  work 
to-morrow  must  be  done."  25 

"Poor  man!   Then,  in  spite  o'  seeming,  you  be  worse  off 
than  we?"  replied  the  shepherd's  wife. 

"  'Tis  the  nature  of  my  trade,  men  and  maidens.  'Tis 
the  nature  of  my  trade  more  than  my  poverty.  .  .  .  But 
really  and  truly  I  must  up  and  off,  or  I  shan't  get  a  lodg-  30 
ing  in  the  town."  However,  the  speaker  did  not  move,  and 
directly  added,  "There's  time  for  one  more  draught  of 
friendship  before  I  go;  and  I'd  perform  it  at  once  if  the 
mug  were  not  dry." 


170  Thomas  Hardy 

''Here's  a  mug  o'  small,"  said  Mrs.  Fennel.  " Small,  we 
call  it,  though  to  be  sure  'tis  only  the  first  wash  o'  the 
combs." 

"No,"  said  the  stranger  disdainfully.     "I  won't  spoil 
5  your  first  kindness  by  partaking  o'  your  second." 

"Certainly  not,"  broke  in  Fennel.    "We  don't  increase 

and  multiply  every  day,  and  I'll  fill  the  mug  again."    He 

went  away  to  the  dark  place  under  the  stairs  where  the 

barrel  stood.    The  shepherdess  followed  him. 

10      "Why  should  you  do  this?"  she  said  reproachfully,  as 

soon  as  they  were  alone.    "He's  emptied  it  once,  though 

it  held  enough  for  ten  people;  and  now  he's  not  contented 

wi'  the  small,  but  must  needs  call  for  more  o'  the  strong ! 

And  a  stranger  unbeknown  to  any  of  us.    For  my  part,  I 

15  don't  like  the  look  o>'  the  man  at  all." 

"But  he's  in  the  house,  my  honey;  and  'tis  a  wet  night, 
and  a  christening.  Daze  it,  what's  a  cup  of  mead  more  or 
less?  There'll  be  plenty  more  next  bee-burning." 

"Very  well — this  time,  then,"  she  answered,  looking 
20  wistfully  at  the  barrel.    "But  what  is  the  man's  calling, 
and  where  is  he  one  of,  that  he  should  come  in  and  join 
us  like  this?" 

"I  don't  know.    I'll  ask  him  again." 

The  catastrophe  of  having  the  mug  drained  dry  at  one 
25  pull  by  the  stranger  in  cinder-gray  was  effectually  guarded 
against  this  time  by  Mrs.  Fennel.     She  poured  out  his 
allowance  in  a  small  cup,  keeping  the  large  one  at  a  dis- 
creet distance  from  him.    When  he  had  tossed  off  his  por- 
tion the  shepherd  renewed  his  inquiry  about  the  stranger's 
30  occupation. 

The  latter  did  not  immediately  reply,  and  the  man  in 
the  chimney-corner,  with  sudden  demonstrativeness, 
said,  "Anybody  may  know  my  trade— I'm  a  wheel- 
wright." 


The  Three  Strangers  171 

"A  very  good  trade  for  these  parts,"  said  the  shepherd. 

"And  anybody  may  know  mine — if  they've  the  sense 
to  find  it  out,"  said  the  stranger  in  cinder-gray. 

"You  may  generally  tell  what  a  man  is  by  his  claws," 
observed  the  hedge-carpenter,  looking  at  his  own  hands.    5 
"My  fingers  be  as  full  of  thorns  as  an  old  pin-cushion  is 
of  pins." 

The  hands  of  the  man  in  the  chimney-corner  instinc- 
tively sought  the  shade,  and  he  gazed  into  the  fire  as  he 
resumed  his  pipe.  The  man  at  the  table  took  up  the  hedge-  10 
carpenter's  remark,  and  added  smartly,  "  True;  but  the 
oddity  of  my  trade  is  that,  instead  of  setting  a  mark  upon 
me,  it  sets  a  mark  upon  my  customers." 

No  observation  being  offered  by  anybody  in  elucidation 
of  this  enigma,  the  shepherd's  wife  once  more  called  for  a  15 
song.  The  same  obstacles  presented  themselves  as  at  the 
former  time — one  had  no  voice,  another  had  forgotten  the 
first  verse.  The  stranger  at  the  table,  whose  soul  had 
now  risen  to  a  good  working  temperature,  relieved  the 
difficulty  by  exclaiming  that,  to  start  the  company,  he  20 
would  sing  himself.  Thrusting  one  thumb  into  the  arm- 
hole  of  his  waistcoat,  he  waved  the  other  hand  in  the  air, 
and,  with  an  extemporizing  gaze  at  the  shining  sheep- 
crooks  above  the  mantelpiece,  began: — 

"O  my  trade  it  is  the  rarest  one,  25 

Simple  shepherds  all — • 
My  trade  is  a  sight  to  see; 

For  my  customers  I  tie,  and  take  them  up  on  high, 
And  waft  'em  to  a  far  countree!" 

The  room  was  silent  when  he  had  finished  the  verse — with  3° 
one  exception,  that  of  the  man  in  the  chimney-corner,  who, 
at  the  singer's  word,  "Chorus!"  joined  him  in  a  deep  bass 
voice  of  musical  relish — 

"And  waft  'em  to  a  far  countree!" 


172  Thomas  Hardy 

Oliver  Giles,  John  Pitcher  the  dairyman,  the  parish-clerk, 
the  engaged  man  of  fifty,  the  row  of  young  women  against 
the  wall,  seemed  lost  in  thought  not  of  the  gayest  kind. 
The  shepherd  looked  meditatively  on  the  ground,  the 
5  shepherdess  gazed  keenly  at  the  singer,  and  with  some 
suspicion;  she  was  doubting  whether  this  stranger  were 
merely  singing  an  old  song  from  recollection,  or  was  com- 
posing one  there  and  then  for  the  occasion.  All  were  as 
.perplexed  at  the  obscure  revelation  as  the  guests  at 
10  Belshazzar's  Feast,  except  the  man  in  the  chimney- 
corner,  who  quietly  said.  "Second  verse,  stranger,"  and 
smoked  on. 

The  singer  thoroughly  moistened  himself  from  his  lips 
inwards,  and  went  on  with  the  next  stanza  as  requested: — 

15  "My  tools  are  but  common  ones, 

Simple  shepherds  all — 
My  tools  are  no  sight  to  see: 

A  little  hempen  string,  and  a  post  whereon  to  swing, 
Are  implements  enough  for  me!" 

20  Shepherd  Fennel  glanced  round.  There  was  no  longer  any 
doubt  that  the  stranger  was  answering  his  question  rhyth- 
mically; The  guests  one  and  all  started  back  with  sup- 
pressed exclamations.  The  young  woman  engaged  to  the 
man  of  fifty  fainted  half-way,  and  would  have  proceeded, 

25  but  finding  him  wanting  in  alacrity  for  catching  her  she 
sat  down  trembling. 

"O,  he's  the  -  — !"  whispered  the  people  in  the  back- 
ground, mentioning  the  name  of  an  ominous  public  officer. 
"He's  come  to  do  it!  'Tis  to  be  at  Casterbridge  jail  to- 

30  morrow — the  man  for  sheep-stealing — the  poor  clock- 
maker  we  heard  of,  who  used  to  live  away  at  Shottsford  and 
had  no  work  to  do — Timothy  Summers,  whose  family  were 
a-starving,  and  so  he  went  out  of  Shottsford  by  the  high- 


The  Three  Strangers  173 

road,  and  took  a  sheep  in  open  daylight  defying  the  farmer 
and  the  farmer's  wife  and  the  farmer's  lad,  and  every  man 
jack  among  'em.  He"  (and  they  nodded  towards  the 
stranger  of  the  deadly  trade)  "is  come  from  up  the  coun- 
try to  do  it  because  there's  not  enough  to  do  in  his  own  5 
county-town,  and  he's  got  the  place  here  now  our  own 
county  man's  dead;  he's  going  to  live  in  the  same  cottage 
under  the  prison  wall." 

The   stranger  in   cinder-gray  took  no  notice  of  this 
whispered  string  of  observations,  but  again  wetted  his  lips.  '10 
Seeing  that  his  friend  in  the  chimney-corner  was  the  only 
one  who  reciprocated  his  joviality  in  any  way,  he  held  out 
his  cup  towards  that  appreciative  comrade,  who  also  held 
out  his  own.    They  clinked  together,  the  eyes  of  the  rest 
of  the  room  hanging  upon  the  singer's  actions.    He  parted  15 
his  lips  for  the  third  verse;  but  at  that  moment  another 
knock  was  audible  upon  the  door.    This  time  the  knock 
was  faint  and  hesitating. 

The  company  seemed  scared;  the  shepherd  looked  with 
consternation  towards  the  entrance,  and  it  was  with  some  20 
effort   that  he  resisted  his  alarmed   wife's   deprecatory 
glance,  and  uttered  for  the  third  time  the  welcoming  words 
" Walk  in!" 

The  door  was  gently,  opened,  and  another  man  stood 
upon  the  mat.    He,  like  those  who  had  preceded  him,  was  a  25 
stranger.    This  time  it  was  a  short,  small  personage,  of 
fair  complexion,  and  dressed  in  a  decent  suit  of  dark 
clothes. 

"Can  you  tell  me  the  way  to ?"  he  began:  when, 

gazing  round  the  room  to  observe  the  nature  of  the  com-  30 
pany  amongst  whom  he  had  fallen,  his  eyes  lighted  on  the 
stranger  in  cinder-gray.    It  was  just  at  the  instant  when 
the  latter,  who  had  thrown  his  mind  into  his  song  with 
such  a  will   that  he  scarcely  heeded  the  interruption, 


174  Thomas  Hardy 

silenced  all  whispers  and  inquiries  by  bursting  into  his 
third  verse : — 

"To-morrow  is  my  working  day, 
Simple  shepherds  all — 
e  To-morrow  is  a  working  day  for  me: 

For  the  farmer's  sheep  is  slain,  and  the  lad  who  did  it  ta'en, 
And  on  his  soul  may  God  ha'  merc-y!" 

The  stranger  in  the  chimney-corner,  waving  cups  with  the 
singer  so  heartily  that  his  mead  splashed  over  on  the 
10  hearth,  repeated  in  his  bass  voice  as  before: — 

"And  on  his  soul  may  God  ha'  merc-y!" 

All  this  time  the  third  stranger  had  been  standing  in  the 
doorway.  Finding  now  that  he  did  not  come  forward  or  go 
on  speaking,  the  guests  particularly  regarded  him.  They 

15  noticed  to  their  surprise  that  he  stood  before  them  the 
picture  of  abject  terror — his  knees  trembling,  his  hand 
shaking  so  violently  that  the  door-latch  by  which  he  sup- 
ported himself  rattled  audibly:  his  white  lips  were  parted, 
and  his  eyes  fixed  on  the  merry  officer  of  justice  in  the 

20  middle  of  the  room.  A  moment  more  and  he  had  turned, 
closed  the  door,  and  fled. 

"What  a  man  can  it  be?"  said  the  shepherd. 
The  rest,  between  the  awfulness  of  their  late  discovery 
and  the  odd  conduct  of  this  third  visitor,  looked  as  if  they 

25  knew  not  what  to  think,  and  said  nothing.  Instinctively 
they  withdrew  further  and  further  from  the  grim  gentle- 
man in  their  midst,  whom  some  of  them  seemed  to  take  for 
the  Prince  of  Darkness  himself,  till  they  formed  a  remote 
circle,  an  empty  space  of  floor  being  left  between  them  and 

ao  him— 

"...  circulus,  cujus  centrum  diabolus." 

The  room  was  so  silent — though  there  were  more  than 
twenty  people  in  it — that  nothing  could  be  heard  but  the 


The  Three  Strangers  175 

patter  of  the  rain  against  the  window-shutters,  accom- 
panied by  the  occasional  hiss  of  a  stray  drop  that  fell  down 
the  chimney  into  the  fire,  and  the  steady  puffing  of  the 
man  in  the  corner,  who  had  now  resumed  his  pipe  of  long 
clay.  5 

The  stillness  was  unexpectedly  broken.  The  distant 
sound  of  a  gun  reverberated  through  the  air — apparently 
from  the  direction  of  the  county-town. 

"Be  jiggered!"  cried  the  stranger  who  had  sung  the 
song,  jumping  up.  10 

"What  does  that  mean?"  asked  several. 

"A  prisoner  escaped  from  the  jail — that's  what  it 
means." 

All  listened.    The  sound  was  repeated,  and  none  of  them 
spoke  but  the  man  in  the  chimney-corner,  who  said  quietly,  15 
"I've  often  been  told  that  in  this  county  they  fire  a  gun 
at  such  times;  but  I  never  heard  it  till  now." 

"I  wonder  if  it  is  my  man?"  murmured  the  personage 
in  cinder-gray. 

"Surely  it  is!"  said  the  shepherd  involuntarily.    "And  20 
surely  we've  zeed  him!    That  little  man  who  looked  in  at 
the  door  by  now,  and  quivered  like  a  leaf  when  he  zeed  ye 
and  heard  your  song!" 

"His  teeth  chattered,  and  the  breath  went  out  of  his 
body,"  said  the  dairyman.  25 

"And  his  heart  seemed  to  sink  within  him  like  a  stone," 
said  Oliver  Giles. 

"And  he  bolted  as  if  he'd  been  shot  at,"  said  the  hedge- 
carpenter. 

"True— his  teeth  chattered,  and  his  heart  seemed  to  30 
sink;  and  he  bolted  as  if  he'd  been  shot  at,"  slowly  summed 
up  the  man  in  the  chimney-corner. 

"I  didn't  notice  it,"  remarked  the  hangman. 

"We  were  all  a-wondering  what  made  him  run  off  in  suet 


176  Thomas  Hardy 

a  fright,"  faltered  one  of  the  women  against  the  wall, 
"and  now  'tis  explained!" 

The  firing  of  the  alarm-gun  went  on  at  intervals,  low 

and  sullenly,  and  their  suspicions  became  a  certainty. 

5  The  sinister  gentleman  in  cinder-gray  roused  himself.    "  Is 

there  a  constable  here?"  he  asked,  in  thick  tones.    "If  so, 

let  him  step  forward." 

The  engaged  man  of  fifty  stepped  quavering  out  from 
the  wall,  his  betrothed  beginning  to  sob  on  the  back  of 
10  the  chair. 

"You  are  a  sworn  constable?" 

"I  be,  sir." 

"Then  pursue  the  criminal  at  once,  with  assistance,  and 
bring  him  back  here.    He  can't  have  gone  far." 
15      "  I  will,  sir,  I  will — when  I've  got  my  staff.    I'll  go  home 
and  get  it,  and  come  sharp  here,  and  start  in  a  body." 

"Staff! — never  mind  your  staff;  the  man'll  be  gone!" 

"But  I  can't  do  nothing  without  my  staff — can  I,  Wil- 
liam, and  John,  and  Charles  Jake?    No;  for  there's  the 
20  king's  royal  crown  a  painted  on  en  in  yaller  and  gold,  and 
the  lion  and  the  unicorn,  so  as  when  I  raise  en  up  and  hit 
my  prisoner,  'tis  made  a  lawful  blow  thereby.    I  wouldn't 
'tempt  to  take  up  a  man  without  my  staff — no,  not  I.    If 
I  hadn't  the  law  to  gie  me  courage,  why,  instead  o'  my 
25  taking  up  him  he  might  take  up  me!" 

"Now,  I'm  a  king's  man  myself,  and  can  give  you  au- 
thority enough  for  this,"  said  the  formidable  officer  in  gray. 
"Now  then,  all  of  ye,  be  ready.  Have  ye  any  lanterns?" 

"Yes— have  ye  any  lanterns?— I  demand  it!"  said  the 
30  constable. 

"And  the  rest  of  you  able-bodied- " 

"Able-bodied  men — yes — the  rest  of  ye!"  said  the  con- 
stable. 

"Have  you  some  good  stout  staves  and  pitchforks " 


The  Three  Strangers  177 

"Staves  and  pitchforks — in  the  name  o'  the  law!  And 
take  'em  in  yer  hands  and  go  in  quest,  and  do  as  we  in 
authority  tell  ye!" 

Thus  aroused,  the  men  prepared  to  give  chase.  The 
evidence  was,  indeed,  though  circumstantial,  so  convinc-  < 
ing,  that  but  little  argument  was  needed  to  show  the  shep- 
herd's guests  that  after  what  they  had  seen  it  would  look 
very  much  like  connivance  if  they  did  not  instantly  pursue 
the  unhappy  third  stranger,  who  could  not  as  yet  have  gone 
more  than  a  few  hundred  yards  over  such  uneven  country.  10 

A  shepherd  is  always  well  provided  with  lanterns;  and, 
lighting  these  hastily,  and  with  hurdle-staves  in  their 
hands,  they  poured  out  of  the  door,  taking  a  direction  along 
the  crest  of  the  hill,  away  from  the  town,  the  rain  having 
fortunately  a  little  abated.  15 

Disturbed  by  the  noise,  or  possibly  by  unpleasant  dreams 
of  her  baptism,  the  child  who  had  been  christened  began 
to  cry  heart-brokenly  in  the  room  overhead.  These  notes 
of  grief  came  down  through  the  chinks  of  the  floor  to  the 
ears  of  the  women  below,  who  jumped  up  one  by  one,  and  20 
seemed  glad  of  the  excuse  to  ascend  and  comfort  the  baby, 
for  the  incidents  of  the  last  half-hour  greatly  oppressed 
them.  Thus  in  the  space  of  two  or  three  minutes  the  room 
on  the  ground-floor  was  deserted  quite. 

But  it  was  not  for  long.    Hardly  had  the  sound  of  foot-  25 
steps  died  away  when  a  man  returned  round  the  corner  of 
the  house  from  the  direction  the  pursuers  had  taken.    P*  ?p- 
ing  in  at  the  door,  and  seeing  nobody  there,  he  entered 
leisurely.    It  was  the  stranger  of  the  chimney-corner,  who 
had  gone  out  with  the  rest.    The  motive  of  his  return  was  30 
shown  by  his  helping  himself  to  a  cut  piece  of  skimmer- 
cake  that  lay  on  a  ledge  beside  where  he  had  sat,  and  which 
he  had  apparently  forgotten  to  take  with  him.    He  also 
poured  out  half  a  cup  more  mead  from  the  quantity  that 


1 78  Thomas  Hardy 

remained,  ravenously  eating  and  drinking  these  as  he  stood. 
He  had  not  finished  when  another  figure  came  in  just  as 
quietly — his  friend  in  cinder-gray. 

"O — you  here?"  said  the  latter,  smiling.     "I  thought 
5  you  had  gone  to  help  in  the  capture."    And  this  speaker 
also  revealed  the  object  of  his  return  by  looking  solicitously 
round  for  the  fascinating  mug  of  old  mead. 

"And  I  thought  you  had  gone,"  said  the  other,  contin- 
uing his  skimmer-cake  with  some  effort. 
10  "Well,  on  second  thoughts,  I  felt  there  were  enough 
without  me,"  said  the  first  confidentially,  "and  such  a 
night  as  it  is,  too.  Besides,  'tis  the  business  o'  the  Govern- 
ment to  take  care  of  its  criminals — not  mine." 

"True;  so  it  is.    And  I  felt  as  you  did,  that  there  were 
15  enough  without  me." 

"I  don't  want  to  break  my  limbs  running  over  the 
humps  and  hollows  of  this  wild  country." 

"Nor  I  neither,  between  you  and  me." 

"These  shepherd-people  are  used  to  it — simple-minded 
20  souls,  you  know,  stirred  up  to  anything  in  a  moment. 
They'll  have  him  ready  for  me  before  the  morning,  and  no 
trouble  to  me  at  all." 

"They'll  have  him,  and  we  shall  have  saved  ourselves 
all  labor  in  the  matter." 

25  "True,  true.  Well,  my  way  is  to  Casterbridge;  and  'tis 
as  much  as  "my  legs  will  do  to  take  me  that  far.  Going  the 
same  way?  " 

"  No,  I  am  sorry  to  say !    I  have  to  get  home  over  there  " 
(he  nodded  indefinitely  to  the  right),  "and  I  feel  as  you 
30  do,  that  it  is  quite  enough  for  my  legs  to  do  before  bed- 
time." 

The  other  had  by  this  time  finished  the  mead  in  the  mug, 
after  which,  shaking  hands  heartily  at  the  door,  and  wish- 
ing each  other  well,  they  went  their  several  ways. 


The  Three  Strangers  179 

In  the  meantime  the  company  of  pursuers  had  reached 
the  end  of  the  hog's-back  elevation  which  dominated  this 
part  of  the  down.  They  had  decided  on  no  particular  plan 
of  action;  and,  finding  that  the  man  of  the  baleful  trade 
was  no  longer  in  their  company,  they  seemed  quite  unable  5 
to  form  any  such  plan  now.  They  descended  in  all  direc- 
tions down  the  hill,  and  straightway  several  of  the  party 
fell  into  the  snare  set  by  Nature  for  all  misguided  midnight 
ramblers  over  this  part  of  the  cretaceous  formation.  The 
"lanchets,"  or  flint  slopes,  which  belted  the  escarpment  at  ic 
intervals  of  a  dozen  yards,  took  the  less  cautious  ones  un- 
awares, and  losing  their  footing  on  the  rubbly  steep  they 
slid  sharply  downwards,  the  lanterns  rolling  from  their 
hands  to  the  bottom,  and  there  lying  on  their  sides  till  the 
horn  was  scorched  through.  15 

When  they  had  again  gathered  themselves  together, 
the  shepherd,  as  the  man  who  knew  the  country  best,  took 
the  lead,  and  guided  them  round  these  treacherous  inclines. 
The  lanterns,  which  seemed  rather  to  dazzle  their  eyes  and 
warn  the  fugitive  than  to  assist  them  in  the  exploration,  20 
were  extinguished,  due  silence  was  observed;  and  in  this 
more  rational  order  they  plunged  into  the  vale.  It  was  a 
grassy,  briery,  moist  defile,  affording  some  shelter  to  any 
person  who  had  sought  it;  but  the  party  perambulated  it 
in  vain,  and  ascended  on  the  other  side.  Here  they  wan-  25 
dered  apart,  and  after  an  interval  closed  together  again  to 
report  progress.  At  the  second  time  of  closing  in  they 
found  themselves  near  a  lonely  ash,  the  single  tree  on  this 
part  of  the  coomb,  probably  sown  there  by  a  passing  bird 
some  fifty  years  before.  And  here,  standing  a  little  to  one  30 
side  of  the  trunk,  as  motionless  as  the  trunk  itself,  appeared 
the  man  they  were  in  quest  of,  his  outline  being  well  de- 
fined against  the  sky  beyond.  The  band  noiselessly  drew 
up  and  faced  him. 


180  Thomas  Hardy 

"Your  money  or  your  life!"  said  the  constable  sternly  to 
the  still  figure. 

"No,  no,"  whispered  John  Pitcher.  "'Tisn't  our  side 
ought  to  say  that.  That's  the  doctrine  of  vagabonds  like 
5  him,  and  we  be  on  the  side  of  the  law." 

"Well,  well,"  replied  the  constable  impatiently;  "I  must 

say  something,  mustn't  I?  and  if  you  had  all  the  weight 

o'  this  undertaking  upon  your  mind,  perhaps  you'd  say 

the  wrong  thing  too! — Prisoner  at  the  bar,  surrender,  in 

10  the  name  of  the  Father — the  Crown,  I  mane!" 

The  man  under  the  tree  seemed  now  to  notice  them  for 

the  first  time,  and,  giving  them  no  opportunity  whatever 

for  exhibiting  their  courage,  he  strolled  slowly  towards 

them.    He  was,  indeed,  the  little  man,  the  third  stranger; 

15  but  his  trepidation  had  in  a  great  measure  gone. 

"Well,  travelers,"  he  said,  "did  I  hear  ye  speak  to 
me?" 

"You  did:  you've  got  to  come  and  be  our  prisoner  at 
once!"  said  the  constable.  "We  arrest  'ee  on  the  charge 
20  of  not  biding  in  Casterbridge  jail  in  a  decent  proper  man- 
ner to  be  hung  to-morrow  morning.  Neighbors,  do  your 
duty,  and  seize  the  culpet!" 

On  hearing  the  charge,  the  man  seemed  enlightened,  and, 

saying  not  another  word,  resigned  himself  with  preter- 

25  natural  civility  to  the  search-party,  who,  with  their  staves 

in  their  hands,  surrounded  him  on  all  sides,  and  marched 

him  back  towards  the  shepherd's  cottage. 

It  was  eleven  o'clock  by  the  time  they  arrived.  The 
light  shining  from  the  open  door,  a  sound  of  men's  voices 
30  within,  proclaimed  to  them  as  they  approached  the  house 
that  some  new  events  had  arisen  in  their  absence.  On 
entering  they  discovered  the  shepherd's  living  room  to 
be  invaded  by  two  officers  from  Casterbridge  jail,  and 
a  well-known  magistrate  who  lived  at  the  nearest  country- 


The  Three  Strangers  181 

seat,  intelligence  of  the  escape  having  become  generally 
circulated. 

"  Gentlemen,"  said  the  constable,  "I  have  brought  back 
your  man — not  without  risk  and  danger;  but  every  one 
must  do  his  duty!  He  is  inside  this  circle  of  able-bodied  5 
persons,  who  have  lent  me  useful  aid,  considering  their 
ignorance  of  Crown  work.  Men,  bring  forward  your 
prisoner !"  And  the  third  stranger  was  led  to  the  light. 

"Who  is  this?"  said  one  of  the  officials. 

"The  man,"  said  the  constable.  10 

"Certainly  not,"  said  the  turnkey;  and  the  first  corrob- 
orated his  statement. 

"But  how  can  it  be  otherwise?"  asked  the  constable. 
"Or  why  was  he  so  terrified  at  sight  o'  the  singing  instru- 
ment of  the  law  who  sat  there?"     Here  he  related  the  15 
strange  behavior  of  the  third  stranger  on  entering  the 
house  during  the  hangman's  song. 

"Can't  understand  it,"  said  the  officer  coolly.  "All  I 
know  is  that  it  is  not  the  condemned  man.  He's  quite 
a  different  character  from  this  one;  a  gauntish  fellow,  20 
with  dark  hair  and  eyes,  rather  good-looking,  and  with  a 
musical  bass  voice  that  if  you  heard  it  once  you'd  never 
mistake  as  long  as  you  lived." 

"Why,  souls — 'twas  the  man  in  the  chimney-corner!" 

"Hey — what?"   said  the  magistrate,  coming  forward  25 
after  inquiring  particulars  from  the  shepherd  in  the  back- 
ground.   "Haven't  you  got  the  man  after  all?" 

"Well,  sir,"  said  the  constable,  "he's  the  man  we  were 
in  search  of,  that's  true;  and  yet  he's  not  the  man  we  were 
in  search  of.    For  the  man  we  were  in  search  of  was  not  30 
the  man  we  wanted,  sir,  if  you  understand  my  every-day 
way;  for  'twas  the  man  in  the  chimney-corner!" 

"A  pretty  kettle  of  fish  altogether!"  said  the  magistrate. 
"You  had  better  start  for  the  other  man  at  once." 


182  Thomas  Hardy 

The  prisoner  now  spoke  for  the  first  time.    The  mention 
of  the  man  in  the  chimney-corner  seemed  to  have  moved 
him  as  nothing  else  could  do.    "  Sir,"  he  said,  stepping  for- 
ward to  the  magistrate,  "take  no  more  trouble  about  me. 
5  The  time  is  come  when  I  may  as  well  speak.    I  have  done 
nothing;  my  crime  is  that  the  condemned  man  is  my 
brother.    Early  this  afternoon  I  left  home  at  Shottsford  to 
tramp  it  all  the  way  to  Casterbridge  jail  to  bid  him  farewell. 
I  was  benighted,  and  called  here  to  rest  and  ask  the  way, 
10  When  I  opened  the  door  I  saw  before  me  the  very  man,  my 
brother,  that  I  thought  to  see  in  the  condemned  cell  at 
Casterbridge.   He  was  in  this  chimney-corner;  and  jammed 
close  to  him,  so  that  he  could  not  have  got  out  if  he  had 
tried,  was  the  executioner  who'd  come  to  take  his  life, 
15  singing  a  song  about  it  and  not  knowing  that  it  was  his 
victim  who  was  close  by,  joining  in  to  save  appearances. 
My  brother  looked  a  glance  of  agony  at  me,  and  I  knew 
he  meant,  'Don't  reveal  what  you  see;  my  life  depends 
on  it.'    I  was  so  terror-struck  that  I  could  hardly  stand, 
20  and,  not  knowing  what  I  did,  I  turned  and  hurried  away." 

The  narrator's  manner  and  tone  had  the  stamp  of  truth, 
and  his  story  made  a  great  impression  on  all  around.  "And 
do  you  know  where  your  brother  is  at  the  present  time?" 
asked  the  magistrate. 

25      "I  do  not.    I  have  never  seen  him  since  I  closed  this 
door." 

"I  can  testify  to  that,  for  we've  been  between  ye  ever 
since,"  said  the  constable. 

"Where  does  he  think  to  fly  to?— what  is  his  occupa- 
30  tion?" 

"He's  a  watch-and-clock-maker,  sir." 

"'A  said  'a  was  a  wheelwright — a  wicked  rogue,"  said 
the  constable. 

"The  wheels  of  clocks  and  watches  he  meant,  no  doubt/' 


The  Three  Strangers  183 

said  Shepherd  Fennel.    "I  thought  his  hands  were  palish 
for's  trade." 

"Well,  it  appears  to  me  that  nothing  can  be  gained  by 
retaining  this  poor  man  in  custody,"  said  the  magistrate; 
"your  business  lies  with  the  other,  unquestionably."  5 

And  so  the  little  man  was  released  off-hand;  but  he 
looked  nothing  the  less  sad  on  that  account,  it  being  be- 
yond the  power  of  magistrate  or  constable  to  raze  out  the 
written  troubles  in  his  brain,  for  they  concerned  another 
whom  he  regarded  with  more  solicitude  than  himself.  10 
When  this  was  done,  and  the  man  had  gone  his  way,  the 
night  was  found  to  be  so  far  advanced  that  it  was  deemed 
useless  to  renew  the  search  before  the  next  morning. 

Next  day,  accordingly,  the  quest  for  the  clever  sheep- 
stealer  became  general  and  keen,  to  all  appearance  at  least.  15 
But  the  intended  punishment  was  cruelly  disproportioned 
to  the  transgression,  and  the  sympathy  of  a  great  many 
country-folk  in  that  district  was  strongly  on  the  side  of 
the  fugitive.  Moreover,  his  marvelous  coolness  and  dar- 
ing in  hob-and-nobbing  with  the  hangman,  under  the  un-  20 
precedented  circumstances  of  the  shepherd's  party,  won 
their  admiration.  So  that  it  may  be  questioned  if  all  those 
who  ostensibly  made  themselves  so  busy  in  exploring  woods 
and  fields  and  lanes  were  quite  so  thorough  when  it  came 
to  the  private  examination  of  their  own  lofts  and  outhouses.  25 
Stories  were  afloat  of  a  mysterious  figure  being  occasionally 
seen  in  some  old  overgrown  trackway  or  other,  remote  from 
turnpike  roads;  but  when  a  search  was  instituted  in  any 
of  these  suspected  quarters  nobody  was  found.  Thus  the 
days  and  weeks  passed  without  tidings.  30 

In  brief,  the  bass-voiced  man  of  the  chimney-corner  was 
never  recaptured.  Some  said  that  he  went  across  the  sea, 
others  that  he  did  not,  but  buried  himself  in  the  depths  of 
a  populous  city.  At  any  rate,  the  gentleman  in  cinder-gray 


184  Thomas  Hardy 

never  did  his  morning's  work  at  Casterbridge,  nor  met 
anywhere  at  all,  for  business  purposes,  the  genial  comrade 
with  whom  he  had  passed  an  hour  of  relaxation  in  the 
lonely  house  on  the  coomb. 

5  The  grass  has  long  been  green  on  the  graves  of  Shepherd 
Fennel  and  his  frugal  wife;  the  guests  who  made  up  the 
christening  party  have  mainly  followed  their  entertainers 
to  the  tomb;  the  baby  in  whose  honor  they  all  had  met 
is  a  matron  in  the  sere  and  yellow  leaf.  But  the  arrival  of 
10  the  three  strangers  at  the  shepherd's  that  night,  and  the 
details  connected  therewith,  is  a  story  as  well  known  as 
ever  in  the  country  about  Higher  Crowstairs. 


WILL  O'  THE  MILL 

By  ROBERT  LOUIS  STEVENSON 
THE   PLAIN   AND   THE    STARS 

Mijj  where  Will  lived  with  his  adopted  parents 


stood  in  a  falling  valley  between  pinewoods  and  great 
mountains.     Above,  hill  after  hill  soared  upwards  until 
they  soared  out  of  the  depth  of  the  hardiest  timber,  and 
stood  naked  against  the  sky.    Some  way  up,  a  long  gray    5 
village  lay  like  a  seam  or  a  rag  of  vapor  on  a  wooded  'hill- 
side; and  when  the  wind  was  favorable,  the  sound  of  the 
church  bells  would  drop  down,  thin  and  silvery,  to  Will. 
Below,  the  valley  grew  ever  steeper  and  steeper,  and  at 
the  same  time  widened  out  on  either  hand;  and  from  an  10 
eminence  beside  the  mill  it  was  possible  to  see  its  whole 
length  and  away  beyond  it  over  a  wide  plain,  where  the 
river  turned  and  shone,  and  moved  on  froin_city_to_city 
on  its  voyage  towards  the  sea.    It  chanced  that  ™"*r  -this 
valley  there  lay;  a  pass  into  a  neighboring  kingdom,  so  15 
that,  quiet  and  rural  as  it  was,  the  road  that  ran  along  be- 
side the  river  was  a  high  thoroughfare  between  two  splen- 
did and  powerful  s^iejjes.     All  through   the  summer, 
traveling-carriages  came  crawling  up,  or  went  plunging 
briskly  downwards  past  the  mill;  and  as  it  happened  that  20 
the  other  side  was  very  much  easier  of  ascent,  the  path 
was  not  much  frequented,  except  by  people  going  in  one 
direction;  and  of  all  the  carriages  that  Will  saw  go  by, 
five-sixths  were  plunging  briskly  downwards  and  only 
one-sixth  crawling  up.    Much  more  was  this  the  case  with  25 
foot-passengers.     All   the   light-footed   tourists,   all   the 

185 


1 86  Robert  Louis  Stevenson • 

pedj&rs  laden  with  strange  wares,  were  tending  down- 
ward like  the  river  that  accompanied  their  path.  Nor 
was  this  all;  for  when  Will  was  yet  a  child  a  disastrous 
war  arose  over  a  great  part  of  the  world.  The  newspapers 
5  were  full  of  defeats  and  victories,  the  earth  rang  with 
cavalry  hoofs,  and  often  for  days  together  and  for  miles 
around  the  coil  of  battle  terrified  good  people  from  their 
labors  in  the  field.  Of  all  this,  nothing  was  heard  for  a 
long  time  in  the  valley;  but  at  last  one  of  the  commanders 

10  pushed  an  army  over  the  pass  by  forced  marches,  and 
for  three  days  horse  and  foot,  cannon  and  tumbril,  drum 
and  standard,  kept  pouring  downward  past  the  mill.  All 
day  the  child  stood  and  watched  them  on  their  passage — 
the  rhythmical  stride,  the  pale,  unshaven  faces  tanned 

15  about  the  eyes,  the  discolored  regimental^  and  the  tat- 
tered flags,  filled  him  with  a  sense  of  weariness,  pity, 
and  wonder;  and  all  night  long,  after  he  was  in  bed,  he 
could  hear  the  cannon  pounding  and  the  feet  trampling, 
and  the  great  armament  sweeping  onward  and  downward 

20  past  the  mill.  No  one  in  the  valley  ever  heard  the  fate  of 
the  expedition,  for  they  lay  out  of  the  way  of  gossip  in 
those  troublous  times;  but  Will  saw  one  thing  plainly, 
that  not  a  man  returned.  Whither  had  they  all  gone? 
Whither  went  all  the  tourists  and  pedlars  with  strange 

25  wares?  whither  all  the  brisk  barouches  with  servants  in 
the  dicky?  whither  the  water  of  the  stream,  ever  cours- 
ing downward  and  ever  renewed  from  above?  Even  the 
wind  blew  oftener  down  the  valley,  and  carried  the  dead 
leaves  along  with  it  in  the  fall.  It  seemed  like  a  great 

30  conspiracy  of  things  animate  and  inanimate;  they  all  went 
downward,  fleetly  and  gaily  downward,  and  only  he,  it 
seemed,  remained  behind,  like  a  stock  upon  the  wayside. 
It  sometimes  made  him  glad  when  he  noticed  how  the 
fishes  kept  their  heads  up  stream.  They,  at  least,  stood 


Will  o'  the  Mill  187 

faithfully  by  him,  while  all  else  were  posting  downward  to 
the  unknown  world. 

One   evening   he   asked    the   miller    where    the    river 
w^ent. 

"It  goes  down  the  valley,"  answered  he,  "and  turns    5 
a  power  of  mills — six  score  mills,  they  say,  from  here  to 
Unterdeck — and  it  none  the  wearier  after  all.    And  then  it 
goes  out  into  the  lowlands,  and  waters  the  great  corn  coun- 
try, and  runs  through  a  sight  of  fine  cities  (so  they  say) 
where  kings  live  all  alone  in  great  palaces,  with  a  sentry  10 
walking  up  and  down  before  the  door.    And  it  goes  under 
bridges  with  stone  men  upon  them,  looking  down  and 
smiling  so  curious  at  the  water,  and  living  folks  leaning 
their  elbows  on  the  wall  and  looking  over  too.    And  then 
it  goes  on  and  on,  and  down  through  marshes  and  sands,  15 
until  at  last  it  falls  into  the  sea,  where  the  ships  are  that 
bring  parrots  and  tobacco  from  the  Indies.     Ay,  it  has 
a  long  trot  before  it  as  it  goes  singing  over  our  weir,  bless 
its  heart!" 

"And  what  is  the  sea?"  asked  Will.  20 

"The  sea!"  cried  the  miller.  "Lord  help  us  all,  it  is 
the  greatest  thing  God  made!  That  is  where  all  the  water 
in  the  world  runs  down  into  a  great  salt  lake.  There  it 
lies,  as  flat  as  my  hand  and  as  innocent-like  as  a  child; 
but  they  do  say  when  the  wind  blows  it  gets  up  into  water-  25 
mountains  bigger  than  any  of  ours,  and  swallows  down 
great  ships  bigger  than  our  mill,  and  makes  such  a  roar- 
ing that  you  can  hear  it  miles  away  upon  the  land.  There 
are  great  fish  in  it  five  times  bigger  than  a  bull,  and  one 
old  serpent  as  long  as  our  river  and  as  old  as  all  the  world,  30 
with  whiskers  like  a  man,  and  a  crown  of  silver  on  her 
head." 

Will  thought  he  had  never  heard  anything  like  this, 
and  he  kept  on  asking  question  after  question  about  the 


1 88  Robert  Louis  Stevenson 

world  that  lay  away  down  the  river,  with  all  its  perils  and 
marvels,  until  the  old  miller  became  quite  interested  him- 
self, and  at  last  took  him  by  the  hand  and  led  him  to  the 
hill-top  that  overlooks  the  valley  and  the  plain.  The  sun 

5  was  near  setting,  and  hung  low  down  in  a  cloudless  sky. 
Everything  was  denned  and  glorified  in  golden  light. 
Will  had  never  seen  so  great  an  expanse  of  country  in  his 
life;  he  stood  and  gazed  with  all  his  eyes.  He  could  see 
the  cities,  and  the  woods  and  fields,  and  the  bright  curves 

10  of  the  river,  and  far  away  to  where  the  rim  of  the  plain 
trenched  along  the  shining  heavens.  An  over-mastering 
emotion  seized  upon  the  boy,  soul  and  body;  his  heart 
beat  so  thickly  that  he  could  not  breathe;  the  scene  swam 
before  his  eyes;  the  sun  seemed  to  wheel  round  and  round, 

15  and  throw  off,  as  it  turned,  strange  shapes  which  dis- 
appeared with  the  rapidity  of  thought,  and  were  succeeded 
by  others.  Will  covered  his  face  with  his  hands,  and 
burst  into  a  violent  fit  of  tears;  and  the  poor  miller,  sadly 
disappointed  and  perplexed,  saw  nothing  better  for  it 

20  than  to  take  him  up  in  his  arms  and  carry  him  home  in 
silence. 

From  that  day  forward  Will  was  full  of  new  hopes  and 
longings.  Something  kept  tugging  at  his  heart-strings; 
the  running  water  carried  his  desires  along  with  it  as 

25  he  dreamed  over  its  fleeting  surface;  the  wind,  as  it  ran 
over  innumerable  tree-tops,  hailed  him  with  encouraging 
words;  branches  beckoned  downward;  the  open  road,  as 
it  shouldered  round  the  angles  and  went  turning  and  van- 
ishing faster  and  faster  down  the  valley,  tortured  him 

30  with  its  solicitations.  He  spent  long  whiles  on  the  emi- 
nence, looking  down  the  river-shed  and  abroad  on  the  flat 
lowlands,  and  watched  the  clouds  that  traveled  forth  upon 
the  sluggish  wind  and  trailed  their  purple  shadows  on  the 
plain;  or  he  would  linger  by  the  wayside,  and  follow  the 


Willo'  the  Mill  189 

carriages  with  his  eyes  as  they  rattled  downward  by  the 
river.  It  did  not  matter  what  it  was;  everything  that  went 
that  way,  were  it  cloud  or  carriage,  bird  or  brown  water  in 
the  stream,  he  felt  his  heart  flow  out  after  it  in  an  ecstasy 
of  longing.  5 

We  are  told  by  men  of  science  that  all  the  ventures  of 
mariners  on  the  sea,  all  that  counter-marching~oTtribes 
and  races  that  confounds  old  history  with  its  dust  and 
rumor,  sprang  from  nothing  more  abstruse  than  the  laws 
of  supply  and  demand,  and  a  certain  natural  instinct  10 
for  cheap  rations.  To  any  one  thinking  deeply,  this  will 
seem  a  dull  and  pitiful  explanation.  The  tribes  that  came 
swarming  out  of  the  North  and  East,  if  they  were  indeed 
pressed  onward  from  behind  by  others,  were  drawn  at  the 
same  time  by  the  magnetic  influence  of  the  South  and  15 
West.  The  fame  of  other  lands  had  reached  them;  the 
name  of  the  eternal  city  rang  in  their  ears;  they  were  not 
colonists,  but  pilgrims;  they  traveled  towards  wine  and 
gold  and  sunshine,  but  their  hearts  were  set  on  something 
higher.  That  divine  unrest,  that  old  stinging  trouble  of  20 
humanity  that  makes  all  high  achievements  and  all  miser- 
able failure,  the  same  that  spread  wings  with  Icarus,  the 
same  that  sent  Columbus  into  the  desolate  Atlantic,  in- 
spired and  supported  these  barbarians  on  their  perilous 
march.  There  is  one  legend  which  profoundly  represents  25 
their  spirit,  of  how  a  flying  party  of  these  wanderers 
encountered  a  very  old  man  shod  with  iron.  The  old 
man  asked  them  whither  they  were  going;  and  they  an- 
swered with  one  voice:  "To  the  Eternal  City!"  He 
looked  upon  them  gravely.  "I  have  sought  it,'5  he  said,  30 
"over  the  most  part  of  the  world.  Three  such  pairs  as  I 
now  carry  on  my  feet  have  I  worn  out  upon  this  pilgrim- 
age, and  now  the  fourth  is  growing  slender  underneath 
my  steps.  And  all  this  while  I  have  not  found  the  city." 


190  Robert  Louis  Stevenson 

And  he  turned  and  went  his  own  way  alone,  leaving  them 
astonished. 

And  yet  this  would  scarcely  parallel  the  intensity  of 
Will's  feeling  for  the  plain.  If  he  could  only  go  far  enough 
5  out  there,  he  felt  as  if  his  eyesight  would  be  purged  and 
clarified,  as  if  his  hearing  would  grow  more  delicate,  and 
his  very  breath  would  come  and  go  with  luxury.  He 
was  transplanted  and  withering  where  he  was;  he  lay  in  a 
strange  country  and  was  sick  for  home.  Bit  by  bit,  he 

10  pieced  together  broken  notions  of  the  world  below:  of  the 
river,  ever  moving  and  growing  until  it  sailed  forth  into  the 
majestic  ocean;  of  the  cities,  full  of  brisk  and  beautiful 
people,  playing  fountains,  bands  of  music  and  marble 
palaces,  and  lighted  up  at  night  from  end  to  end  with 

15  artificial  stars  of  gold;  of  the  great  churches,  wise  univer- 
sities, brave  armies,  and  untold  money  lying  stored  in 
vaults ;  of  the  high-flying  vice  that  moved  in  the  sunshine, 
and  the  stealth  and  swiftness  of  midnight  murder.  I  have 
said  he  was  sick  as  if  for  home:  the  figure  halts.  He  was 

20  like  some  one  lying  in  twilit,  formless  pre-existence,  and 
stretching  out  his  hands  lovingly  towards  many-colored, 
many-sounding  life.  It  was  no  wonder  he  was  unhappy, 
he  would  go  and  tell  the  fish:  they  were  made  for  their  life, 
wished  for  no  more  than  worms  and  running  water,  and 

25  a  hole  below  a  falling  bank;  but  he  was  differently  de- 
signed, full  of  desires  and  aspirations,  itching  at  the 
fingers,  lusting  with  the  eyes,  whom  the  whole  variegated 
world  could  not  satisfy  with  aspects.  The  true  life,  the 
true  bright  sunshine,  lay  far  out  upon  the  plain.  And  0! 

30  to  see  this  sunlight  once  before  he  died!  to  move  with  a 
jocund  spirit  in  a  golden  land !  to  hear  the  trained  singers 
and  sweet  church  bells,  and  see  the  holiday  gardens! 
"And  O  fish!"  he  would  cry,  "if  you  would  only  turn 
your  noses  down  stream,  you  could  swim  so  easily  into 


Will  o>  the  Mill  191 

the  fabled  waters  and  see  the  vast  ships  passing  over  your 
head  like  clouds,  and  hear  the  great  water-hills  making 
music  over  you  all  day  long!"  But  the  fish  kept  looking 
patiently  in  their  own  direction,  until  Will  hardly  knew 
whether  to  laugh  or  cry.  5 

Hitherto  the  traffic  on  the  road  had  passed  by  Will,  like 
something  seen  in  a  picture:  he  had  perhaps  exchanged 
salutations  with  a  tourist,  or  caught  sight  of  an  old  gentle- 
man in  a  traveling-cap  at  a  carriage  window;  but  for  the 
most  part  it  had  been  a  mere  symbol,  which  he  contem-  10 
plated  from  apart  and  with  something  of  a  superstitious 
feeling.  A  time  came  at  last  when  this  was  to  be  changed. 
The  miller,  who  was  a  greedy  man  in  his  way,  and  never 
forewent  an  opportunity  of  honest  profit,  turned  the  mill- 
house  into  a  little  wayside  inn,  and,  several  pieces  of  good  15 
fortune  falling  in  opportunely,  built  stables  and  got  the 
position  of  post-master  on  the  road.  It  now  became 
Will's  duty  to  wait  upon  people,  as  they  sat  to  break  their 
fasts  in  the  little  arbor  at  the  top  of  the  mill  garden;  and 
you  may  be  sure  that  he  kept  his  ears  open,  and  learned  20 
many  new  things  about  the  outside  world  as  he  brought 
the  omelette  or  the  wine.  Nay,  he  would  often  get  into 
conversation  with  single  guests,  and  by  adroit  questions 
and  polite  attention,  not  only  gratify  his  own  curiosity, 
but  win  the  good-will  of  the  travelers.  Many  compli-  25 
mented  the  old  couple  on  their  serving-boy;  and  a  pro- 
fessor was  eager  to  take  him  away  with  him,  and  have  him 
properly  educated  in  the  plain.  The  miller  and  his  wife 
were  mightily  astonished  and  even  more  pleased.  They 
thought  it  a  very  good  thing  that  they  should  have  opened  30 
their  inn.  "You  see,"  the  old  man  would  remark,  "he 
has  a  kind  of  talent  for  a  gujblican;  he  never  would  have 
made  anything  else!"  And  so  life  wagged  on  in  the  val- 
ley, with  high  satisfaction  to  all  concerned  but  Will. 


192  Robert  Louis  Stevenson 

Every  carriage  that  left  the  inn-door  seemed  to  take  a 
part  of  him  away  with  it;  and  when  people  jestingly  of- 
fered him  a  lift,  he  could  with  difficulty  command  his 
emotion.  Night  after  night  he  would  dream  that  he 

5  was  awakened  by  flustered  servants,  and  that  a  splendid 
equipage  waited  at  the  door  to  carry  him  down  into  the 
plain;  night  after  night;  until  the  dream,  which  had 
seemed  all  jollity  to  him  at  first,  began  to  take  on  a  color 
of  gravity,  and  the  nocturnal  summons  and  waiting 

10  equipage  occupied  a  place  in  his  mind  as  something  to 
be  both  feared  and  hoped  for. 

One  day,  when  Will  was  about  sixteen,  a  fat  young  man 
arrived  at  sunset  to  pass  the  night.  He  was  a  contented- 
looking  fellow,  with  a  jolly  eye,  and  carried  a  knapsack. 

15  While  dinner  was  preparing,  he  sat  in  the  arbor  to  read  a 
book;  but  as  soon  as  he  had  begun  to  observe  Will,  the 
book  was  laid  aside;  he  was  plainly  one  of  those  who  prefer 
living  people  to  people  made  of  ink  and  paper.  Will,  on 
his  part,  although  he  had  not  been  much  interested  in  the' 

20  stranger  at  first  sight,  soon  began  to  take  a  great  deal  oil 
pleasure  in  his  talk,  which  was  full  of  good  nature  and  good ! 
sense,  and  at  last  conceived  a  great  respect  for  his  character 
and  wisdom.  They  sat  far  into  the  night;  and  about  twc 
in  the  morning  Will  opened  his  heart  to  the  young  man, 

25  and  told  him  how  he  longed  to  leave  the  valley  and  what 
bright  hopes  he  had  connected  with  the  cities  of  the  plain, 
The  young  man  whistled,  and  then  broke  into  a  smile. 

"My  young  friend,"  he  remarked,  "you  are  a  ver) 
curious  little  fellow  to  be  sure,  and  wish  a  great  man) 

30  things  which  you  will  never  get.  Why,  you  would  fee 
quite  ashamed  if  you  knew  how  the  little  fellows  in  these 
fairy  cities  of  yours  are  all  after  the  same  sort  of  nonsense 
and  keep  breaking  their  hearts  to  get  up  into  the  moun 
tains.  And  let  me  tell  you,  those  who  go  down  into  th< 


Will  o'  the  Mill  193 

plains  are  a  very  short  while  there  before  they  wish  them- 
selves heartily  back  again.  The  air  is  not  so  light  nor 
so  pure;  nor  is  the  sun  any  brighter.  As  for  the  beautiful 
men  and  women,  you  would  see  many  of  them  in  rags  and 
many  of  them  deformed  with  horrible  disorders;  and  a  5 
city  is  so  hard  a  place  for  people  who  are  poor  and  sensi- 
tive that  many  choose  to  die  by  their  own  hand." 

"You  must  think  me  very  simple,"  answered  Will. 
"  Although  I  have  never  been  out  of  this  valley,  believe 
me,  I  have  used  my  eyes.  I  know  how  one  thing  lives  10 
on  another;  for  instance,  how  the  fish  hangs  in  the  eddy 
to  catch  his  fellows;  and  the  shepherd,  who  makes  so 
pretty  a  picture  carrying  home  the  lamb,  is  only  carrying 
it  home  for  dinner.  I  do  not  expect  to  find  ail  things  right 
in  your  cities.  That  is  not  what  troubles  me;  it  might  15 
have  been  that  once  upon  a  time;  but  although  I  live  here 
always,  I  have  asked  many  questions  and  learned  a  great 
deal  in  these  last  years,  and  certainly  enough  to  cure  me 
of  my  old  fancies.  But  you  would  not  have  me  die  like 
a  dog  and  not  see  all  that  is  to  be  seen,  and  do  all  that  a  2; 
man  can  do,  let  it  be  good  or  evil?  you  would  not  have  me 
spend  all  my  days  between  this  road  here  and  the  river, 
and  not  so  much  as  make  a  motion  to  be  up  and  live  my 
life? — I  would  rather  die  out  of  hand,"  he  cried,  "than 
linger  on  as  I  am  doing."  25 

"Thousands  of  people,"   said  the  young  man,   "live 
and  die  like  you,  and  are  none  the  less  happy." 

"Ah I"  said  Will,  "if  there  are  thousands  who  would 
like,  why  should  not  one  of  them  have  my  place?  " 

It  was  quite  dark;  there  was  a  hanging  lamp  in  the  30 
arbor  which  lit  up  the  table  and  the  faces  of  the  speakers; 
and  along  the  arch,  the  leaves  upon  the  trellis  stood  out 
illuminated  against  the  night  sky,  a  pattern  of  trans- 
parent green  upon  a  dusky  purple.    The  fat  young  man 


194  Robert  Louis  Stevenson 

rose,  and,  taking  Will  by  the  arm,  led  him  out  under  the 
open  heavens. 

"Did  you  ever  look  at  the  stars?"  he  asked,  pointing 
upwards. 

5       "Often  and  often,"  answered  Will. 
"And  do  you  know  what  they  are?" 
"I  have  fancied  many  things." 

"They  are  worlds  like  ours,"  said  the  young  man. 
"Some  of  them  less;  many  of  them  a  million  times  greater; 

10  and  some  of  the  least  sparkles  that  you  see  are  not  only 
worlds,  but  whole  clusters  of  worlds  turning  about  each 
other  in  the  midst  of  space.  We  do  not  know  what  there 
may  be  in  any  of  them;  perhaps  the  answer  to  all  our  dif- 
ficulties or  the  cure  of  all  our  sufferings:  and  yet  we  can 

15  never  reach  them;  not  all  the  skill  of  the  craftiest  of  men 
can  fit  out  a  ship  for  the  nearest  of  these  our  neighbors, 
nor  would  the  life  of  the  most  aged  sumcejor  such  a  jour- 
ney. When  a  great  battle  has  been  lost  or  a  dear  friend 
is  dead,  when  we  are  hipped  or  in  high  spirits,  there  they 

20  are  unweariedly  shining  overhead.  We  may  stand  down 
here,  a  whole  army  of  us  together,  and  shout  until  we 
break  our  hearts,  and  not  a  whisper  reaches  them.  We 
may  climb  the  highest  mountain,  and  we  are  no  nearer 
them.  All  we  can  do  is  to  stand  down  here  in  the  garden 

25  and  take  off  our  hats;  the  starshine  lights  upon  our  heads, 
and  where  mine  is  a  little  bald,  I  dare  say  you  can  see  it 
glisten  in  the  darkness.  The  mountain  and  the  mouse. 
That  is  like  to  be  all  we  shall  ever  have  to  do  with  Arcturus 
or  Aldebaran.  Can  you  apply  a  parable?"  he  added, 

30  laying  his  hand  upon  Will's  shoulder.  "  It  is  not  the  same 
thing  as  a  reason,  but  usually  vastly  more  convincing." 

Will  hung  his  head  a  little,  and  then  raised  it  once  more 
to  heaven.  The  stars  seemed  to  expand  and  emit  a  sharper 
brilliancy;  and  as  he  kept  turning  his  eyes  higher  and 


Will  o'  the  Mill  195 

higher,  they  seemed  to  increase  in  multitude  under  his 
gaze. 

"I  see,"  he  said,  turning  to  the  young  man.    "We  are 
in  a  rat-trap." 

"Something  of  that  size.    Did  you  ever  see  a  squirrel    5 
turning  in  a  cage?  and  another  squirrel  sitting  philosophic- 
ally over  his  nuts?    I  needn't  ask  you  which  of  them  looked 
more  of  a  fool." 

THE  PARSON'S  MARJORY 

After  some  years  the  old  people  died,  both  in  one  win- 
ter, very  carefully  tended  by  their  adopted  son,  and  very  10 
quietly  mourned  when  they  were  gone.  People  who  had 
heard  of  his  roving  fancies  supposed  he  would  hasten  to 
sell  the  property,  and  go  down  the  river  to  push  his  for- 
tunes. But  there  was  never  any  sign  of  such  an  intention 
on  the  part  of  Will.  On  the  contrary,  he  had  the  inn  set  15 
on  a  better  footing,  and  hired  a  couple  of  servants  to  assist 
him  in  carrying  it  on;  and  there  he  settled  down,  a  kind, 
talkative,  inscrutable  young  man,  six  feet  three  in  his 
stockings,  with  an  iron  constitution  and  a  friendly  voice. 
He  soon  began  to  take  rank  in  the  district  as  a  bit  of  an  20 
oddity:  it  was  not  much  to  be  wondered  at  from  the  first, 
for  he  was  always  full  of  notions,  and  kept  calling  the 
plainest  common-sense  in  question;  but  what  most  raised 
the  report  upon  him  was  the  odd  circumstance  of  his 
courtship  with  the  parson's  Marjory.  25 

The  parson's  Marjory  was  a  lass  about  nineteen,  when 
Will  would  be  about  thirty;  well  enough  looking,  and 
much  better  educated  than  any  other  girl  in  that  part  of 
the  country,  as  became  her  parentage.  She  held  her  head 
very  high,  and  had  already  refused  several  offers  of  mar-  30 
riage  with  a  grand  air,  which  had  got  her  hard  names 
among  the  neighbors.  For  all  that  she  was  a  good 


196  Robert  Louis  Stevenson 

girl,  and  one  that  would  have  made  any  man  well  con- 
tented. 

Will  had  never  seen  much  of  her;  for  although  the 
church  and  parsonage  were  only  two  miles  from  his  own 
5  door,  he  was  never  known  to  go  there  but  on  Sundays. 
It  chanced,  however,  that  the  parsonage  fell  into  disre- 
pair, and  had  to  be  dismantled;  and  the  parson  and  his 
daughter  took  lodgings  for  a  month  or  so,  on  very  much 
reduced  terms,  at  Will's  inn.  Now,  what  with  the  inn, 

10  and  the  mill,  and  the  old  miller's  savings,  our  friend  was 
a  man  of  substance;  and  besides  that,  he  had  a  name  for 
good  temper  and  shrewdness,  which  make  a  capital  por- 
tion in  marriage;  and  so  it  was  currently  gossiped,  among 
their  ill-wishers,  that  the  parson  and  his  daughter  had 

15  not  chosen  their  temporary  lodging  with  their  eyes  shut. 
Will  was  about  the  last  man  in  the  world  to  be  cajoled  or 
frightened  into  marriage.  You  had  only  to  look  into  his 
eyes,  limpid  and  still  like  pools  of  water,  and  yet  with  a 
sort  of  clear  light  that  seemed  to  come  from  within,  and 

20  you  would  understand  at  once  that  here  was  one  who 
knew  his  own  mind,  and  would  stand  to  it  immovably. 
Marjory  herself  was  no  weakling  by  her  looks,  with  strong 
steady  eyes  and  a  resolute  and  quiet  bearing.  It  might 
be  a  question  whether  she  was  not  Will's  match  in  stead- 

25  fastness,  after  all,  or  which  of  them  would  rule  the  roast 
in  marriage.    But  Marjory  had  never  given  it  a  thought, 
and  accompanied  her  father  with  the  most  unshaken  in- 
nocence and  unconcern. 
The  season  was  still  so  early  that  Will's  customers  were 

30  few  and  far  between;  but  the  lilacs  were  already  flowering, 
and  the  weather  was  so  mild  that  the  party  took  dinner 
under  the  trellis,  with  the  noise  of  the  river  in  their  ears 
and  the  woods  ringing  about  them  with  the  songs  of  birds. 
Will  soon  began  to  take  a  particular  pleasure  in  these  din- 


Will  o'  the  Mill  197 

ners.  The  parson  was  rather  a  dull  companion,  with  a 
habit  of  dozing  at  table;  but  nothing  rude  or  cruel  ever 
fell  from  his  lips.  And  as  for  the  parson's  daughter,  she 
suited  her  surroundings  with  the  best  grace  imaginable; 
and  whatever  she  said  seemed  so  pat  and  pretty  that  Will  5 
conceived  a  great  idea  of  her  talents.  He  could  see  her 
face,  as  she  leaned  forward,  against  a  background  of 
rising  pine  woods;  her  eyes  shone  peaceably;  the  light  lay 
around  her  hair  like  a  kerchief ;  something  that  was  hardly 
a  smile  rippled  her  pale  cheeks,  and  Will  could  not  con-  10 
tain  himself  from  gazing  on  her  in  an  agreeable  dismay. 
She  looked,  even  in  her  quietest  moments,  so  complete  in 
herself,  and  so  quick  with  life  down  to  her  finger  tips  and 
the  very  skirts  of  her  dress,  that  the  remainder  of  created 
things  became  no  more  than  a  blot  by  comparison;  and  if  15 
Will  glanced  away  from  her  to  her  surroundings,  the  trees 
looked  inanimate  and  senseless,  the  clouds  hung  in  heaven 
like  dead  things,  and  even  the  mountain  tops  were  dis- 
enchanted. The  whole  valley  could  not  compare  in  looks 
with  this  one  girl.  20 

Will  was  always  observant  in  the  society  of  his  fellow- 
creatures;  but  his  observation  became  'almost  painfully 
eager  in  the  case  of  Marjory.  He  listened  to  all  she  ut- 
tered, and  read  her  eyes,  at  the  same  time,  for  the  un- 
spoken commentary.  Many  kind,  simple,  and  sincere  25 
speeches  found  an  echo  in  his  heart.  He  became  con- 
scious of  a  soul  beautifully  poised  upon  itself,  nothing 
doubting,  nothing  desiring,  clothed  in  peace.  It  was  not' 
possible  to  separate  her  thoughts  from  her  appearance. 
The  turn  of  her  wrist,  the  still  sound  of  her  voice,  the  light  30 
in  her  eyes,  the  lines  of  her  body,  fell  in  tune  with  her 
grave  and  gentle  words,  like  the  accompaniment  that  sus- 
tains and  harmonises  the  voice  of  the  singer.  Her  influ- 
ence was  one  thing,  not  to  be  divided  or  discussed,  only 


198  Robert.  Louis  Stevenson 

to  be  felt  with  gratitude  and  joy.  To  Will,  her  presence 
recalled  something  of  his  childhood,  and  the  thought  of 
her  took  its  place  in  his  mind  beside  that  of  dawn,  of 
running  water,  and  of  the  earliest  violets  and  lilacs.  It 
5  is  the  property  of  things  seen  for  the  first  time,  or  for  the 
first  time  after  long,  like  the  flowers  in  spring,  to  reawaken 
in  us  the  sharp  edge  of  sense  and  that  impression  of  mystic 
strangeness  which  otherwise  passes  out  of  life  with  the 
coming  of  years;  but  the  sight  of  a  loved  face  is  what  re- 

10  news  a  man's  character  from  the  fountain  upwards. 

One  day  after  dinner  Will  took  a  stroll  among  the  firs; 
a  grave  beatitude  possessed  him  from  top  to  toe,  and  he 
kept  smiling  to  himself  and  the  landscape  as  he  went. 
The  river  ran  between  the  stepping-stones  with  a  pretty 

15  wimple;  a  bird  sang  loudly  in  the  wood;  the  hill- tops 
looked  immeasurably  high,  and  as  he  glanced  at  them 
from  time  to  time  seemed  to  contemplate  his  movements 
with  a  beneficent  but  awful  curiosity.  His  way  took  him 
to  the  eminence  which  overlooked  the  plain;  and  there  he 

20  sat  down  upon  a  stone,  and  fell  into  deep  and  pleasant 
thought.    The  plain  lay  abroad  with  its  cities  and  silver" 
river;  everything  was  asleep,  except  a  great  eddy  of  birds 
which  kept  rising  and  falling  and  going  round  and  round 
in  the  blue  air.    He  repeated  Marjory's  name  aloud,  and 

25  the  sound  of  it  gratified  his  ear.  He  shut  his  eyes,  and 
her  image  sprang  up  before  him,  quietly  luminous  and 
attended  with  good  thoughts.  The  river  might  run'' for 
ever;  the  birds  fly  higher  and  higher  till  they  touched  the 
stars.  He  saw  it  was  empty  bustle  after  all;  for  here, 

30  without  stirring  a  foot,  waiting  patiently  in  his  own  nar- 
row valley,  he  also  had  attained  the  better  sunlight. 

The  next  day  Will  made  a  sort  of  declaration  across 

the  dinner-table,  while  the  parson  was  filling  his  pipe. 

"Miss  Marjory,"  he  said,  "I  never  knew  any  one  I 


Will  o'  the  Mill  199 

liked  so  well  as  you.  I  am  mostly  a  cold,  unkindly  sort 
of  man;  not  from  want  of  heart,  but  out  of  strangeness  in 
my  way  of  thinking;  and  people  seem  far  away  from  me. 
'Tis  as  if  there  were  a  circle  round  me,  which  kept  every 
one  out  but  you;  I  can  hear  the  others  talking  and  laugh-  5 
ing;  but  you  come  quite  close.  Maybe  this  is  disagreeable 
to  you?  "  he  asked. 

Marjory  made  no  answer. 

"Speak  up,  girl,"  said  the  parson. 

"Nay,  now,"  returned  Will,   "I  wouldn't  press  her,  10 
parson.     I  feel  tongue-tied  myself,  who  am  not  used  to 
it;  and  she's  a  woman,  and  little  more  than  a  child,  when 
all  is  said.    But  for  my  part,  as  far  as  I  can  understand 
what  people  mean  by  it,  I  fancy  I  must  be  what  they  call 
in  love.    I  do  not  wish  to  be  held  as  committing  myself;  15 
for  I  may  be  wrong;  but  that  is  how  I  believe  things  are 
with  me.    And  if  Miss  Marjory  should  feel  any  otherwise 
on  her  part,  mayhap  she  would  be  so  kind  as  shake  her 
head." 

Marjory  was  silent,  and  gave  no  sign  that  she  had  20 
heard. 

"How  is  that,  parson?"  asked  Will. 

"The  girl  must  speak,"  replied  the  parson,  laying  down 
his  pipe.  "Here's  our  neighbor  who  says  he  loves  you, 
Madge.  Do  you  love  him,  ay  or  no?  "  25 

"I  think  I  do,"  said  Marjory  faintly. 

"Well,  then,  that's  all  that  could  be  wished!"  cried 
Will  heartily.  And  he  took  her  hand  across  the  table,  and 
held  it  a  moment  in  both  of  his  with  great  satisfaction. 

"You  must  marry,"  observed  the  parson,  replacing  his  30 
pipe  in  his  mouth. 

"Is  that  the  right  thing  to  do,  think  you?"  demanded 
Will. 

"It  is  indispensable,"  said  the  parson. 


2OO  Robert  Louis  Stevenson 

"Very  well,"  replied  the  wooer. 

Two  or  three  days  passed  away  with  great  delight  to 
Will,  although  a  bystander  might  scarce  have  found  it 
out.  He  continued  to  take  his  meals  opposite  Marjory, 
5  and  to  talk  with  her  and  gaze  upon  her  in  her  father's 
presence;  but  he  made  no  attempt  to  see  her  alone,  nor 
in  any  other  way  changed  his  conduct  towards  her  from 
what  it  had  been  since  the  beginning.  Perhaps  the  girl 
was  a  little  disappointed,  and  perhaps  not  unjustly;  and 
10  yet  if  it  had  been  enough  to  be  always  in  the  thoughts  of 
another  person,  and  so  pervade  and  alter  his  whole  life, 
she  might  have  been  thoroughly  contented.  For  she  was 
never  out  of  Will's  mind  for  an  instant.  He  sat  over  the 
stream,  and  watched  the  dust  of  the  eddy,  and  the  poised 
15  fish,  and  straining  weeds;  he  wandered  out  alone  into  the 
purple  even,  with  all  the  blackbirds  piping  round  him  in 
the  wood;  he  rose  early  in  the  morning,  and  saw  the  sky 
turn  from  grey  to  gold,  and  the  light  leap  upon  the  hill- 
tops; and  all  the  while  he  kept  wondering  if  he  had  never 
20  seen  such  things  before,  or  how  itxwas  that  they  should 
look  so  different  now.  The  sound  ol.his  own  mill-wheel, 
or  of  the  wind  among  the  trees,  confounded  and  charmed 
his  heart.  The  most  enchanting  thoughts  presented  them- 
selves unbidden  in  his  mind.  He  was  so  happy  that  he 
25  could  not  sleep  at  night,  and  so  restless  that  he  could 
hardly  sit  still  out  of  her  company.  And  yet  it  seemed  as 
if  he  avoided  her  rather  than  sought  her  out. 

One  day,  as  he  was  coming  home  from  'a  ramble,  Will 
found  Marjory  in  the  garden  picking  flowers,  and  as  he 
30  came  up  with  her,  slackened  his  pace  and  continued  walk- 
ing by^her  side. 

"You  like  flowers?"  he  said. 

"Indeed  I  love  them  dearly,"  she  replied.    "Do  you?" 

"Why,  no,"  said  he,  "not  so  much.    They  are  a  very 


Will  o'  the  Mill  201 

small  affair,  when  all  is  done.    I  can  fancy  people  caring 
for  them  greatly,  but  not  doing  as  you  are  just  now." 

"How?"  she  asked,  pausing  and  looking  up  at  him. 

"Plucking  them,"  said  he.    "They  are  a  deal  better  off 
where  they  are,  and  look  a  deal  prettier,  if  you  go  to  that."    5 

"I  wish  to  have  them  for  my  own,"  she  answered,  "to 
carry  them  near  my  heart,  and  keep  them  in  my  room. 
They  tempt  me  when  they  grow  here;  they  seem  to  say, 
'Come  and  do  something  with  us';  but  once  I  have  cut 
them  and  put  them  by,  the  charm  is  laid,  and  I  can  look  10 
at  them  with  quite  an  easy  heart." 

"You  wish  to  possess  them,"  replied  Will,  "in  order  ^ 
to  think  no  more  about  them.    It's  a  bit  like  killing  the 
goose  with  the  golden  eggs.    It's  a  bit  like  what  I  wished 
to  do  when  I  was  a  boy.    Because  I  had  a  fancy  for  look-  15 
ing  out  over  the  plain,  I  wished  to  go  down  there — where 
I  couldn't  look  out  over  it  any  longer.    Was  not  that  fine 
reasoning?    Dear,  dear,  if  they  only  thought  of  it,  all  the 
world  would  do  like  me;  and  you  would  let  your  flowers 
alone,  just  as  I  stay  up  here  in  the  mountains."     Sud-  20 
denly  he  broke  off  sharp.     "By  the  Lord!"  he  cried. 
And  when  she  asked  him  what  was  wrong,  he  turned  the 

question  off,  and  walked  away  into  the  house  with  rather 

a  humorous  expression  of  face. 

He  was  silent  at  table;  and  after  the  night  had  fallen  25 
and  the  stars  had  come  out  overhead,  he  walked  up  and 
down  for  hours  in  the  court-yard  and  garden  with  an  un- 
even pace.    There  was  still  a  light  in.  the  window  of  Mar- 
jory's room:  one  little  oblong  patch  of  orange  in  a  world 
of  dark  blue  hills  and  silver  starlight.    Will's  mind  ran  a  30 
great  deal  on  the  window;  but  his  thoughts  were  not  very 
lover-like.    "There  she  is  in  her  room,"  he  thought,  "and 
there  are  the  stars  overhead: — a  blessing  upon  both!" 
5oth  were  good  influences  in  his  life;  both  soothed  and 


2O2  Robert  Louis  Stevenson 

braced  him  in  his  profound  contentment  with  the  world. 
And  what  more  should  he  desire  with  either?  The  fat 
young  man  and  his  counsels  were  so  present  to  his  mind 
that  he  threw  back  his  head,  and,  putting  his  hands  before 
5  his  mouth,  shouted  aloud  to  the  populous  heavens. 
Whether  from  the  position  of  his  head  or  the  sudden  strain 
of  the  exertion,  he  seemed  to  see  a  momentary  shock 
among  the  stars,  and  a  diffusion  of  frosty  light  pass  from 
one  to  another  along  the  sky.  At  the  same  instant,  a  cor- 

10  ner  of  the  blind  was  lifted  up  and  lowered  again  at  once. 
He  laughed  a  loud  ho-ho!  "One  and  another!"  thought 
Will.  "The  stars  tremble,  and  the  blind  goes  up.  Why, 
before  Heaven,  what  a  great  magician  I  must  bel  Now,  if 
I  were  only  a  fool,  should  not  I  be  in  a  pretty  way?" 

15  And  he  went  off  to  bed,  chuckling  to  himself:  "If  I  were 
only  a  fool!" 

The  next  morning,  pretty  early,  he  saw!  her  once  more 
in  the  garden,  and  sought  her  out. 

"I  have  been  thinking  about  getting  married,"  he  be- 

20  gan  abruptly;  "and  after  having  turned  it  all  over,  I  have 
made  up  my  mind  it's  not  worth  while." 

She  turned  upon  him  for  a  single  moment;  but  his 
radiant,  kindly  appearance  would,  under  the  circum- 
stances, have  disconcerted  an  angel,  and  she  looked  down 

25  again  upon  the  ground  in  silence.  He  could  see  her 
tremble. 

"I  hope  you  don't  mind,"  he  went  on,  a  little  taken 
aback.  "You  ought  not.  I  have  turned  it  all  over,  and 
upon  my  soul  there's  nothing  in  it.  We  should  never  be 

30  one  whit  nearer  than  we  are  just  now,  and,  if  I  am  a  wise 
man,  nothing  like  so  happy." 

"It  is  unnecessary  to  go  round  about  with  me,"  she 
said.  "I  very  well  remember  that  you  refused  to  com- 
mit yourself;  and  now  that  I  see  you  were  mistaken,  and 


Will  o'  the  Mill  203 

in  reality  have  never  cared  for  me,  I  can  only  feel  sad  that 
I  have  been  so  far  misled." 

"I  ask  your  pardon,"  said  Will  stoutly;  "you  do  not 
understand  my  meaning.  As  to  whether  I  have  ever 
loved  you  or  not,  I  must  leave  that  to  others.  But  for  5 
one  thing,  my  feeling  is  not  changed;  and  for  another, 
you  may  make  it  your  boast  that  you  have  made  my 
whole  life  and  character  something  different  from  what 
they  were.  I  mean  what  I  say;  no  less.  I  do  not  think 
getting  married  is  worth  while.  I  would  rather  you  went  10 
on  living  with  your  father,  so  that  I  could  walk  over  and 
see  you  once,  or  maybe  twice  a  week,  as  people  go  to 
church,  and  then  we  should  both  be  all  the  happier  be- 
tween whiles.  That's  my  notion.  But  I'll  marry  you  if 
you  will,"  he  added.  15 

"Do  you  know  that  you  are  insulting  me?"  she  broke 
out. 

"Not  I,  Marjory,"  said  he;  "if  there  is  anything  in 
a  clear  conscience,  not  I.     I  offer  all  my  heart's  best 
affections;  you  can  take  it  or  want  it,  though  I  suspect  20 
it's  beyond  either  your  power  or  mine  to  change  what 
has  once  been  done,  and  set  me  fancy-free.     I'll  marry 
you,  if  you  like;  but  I  tell  you  again  and  again,  it's  not 
worth  while,  and  we  had  best  stay  friends.     Though  I 
am  a  quiet  man  I  have  noticed  a  heap  of  things  in  my  life.  25 
Trust  in  me,  and  take  things  as  I  propose;  or,  if  you  don't 
like  that,  say  the  word,  and  I'll  marry  you  out  of  hand." 

There  was  a  considerable  pause,  and  Will,  who  began 
to  feel  uneasy,  began  to  grow  angry  in  consequence. 

"It  seems  you  are  too  proud  to  say  your  mind,"  he  30 
said.    "Believe  me,  that's  a  pity.    A  clean  shrift  makes 
simple  living.     Can  a  man  be  more  downright  or  hon- 
orable to  a  woman  than  I  have  been?    I  have  said  my 
say,  and  given  you  your  choice.     Do  you  want  me  to 


204  Robert  Louis  Stevenson 

marry  you?  or  will  you  take  my  friendship,  as  I  think 
best?  or  have  you  had  enough  of  me  for  good?  Speak  out 
for  the  dear  God's  sake!  You  know  your  father  told  you 
a  girl  should  speak  her  mind  in  these  affairs." 
5  She  seemed  to  recover  herself  at  that,  turned  without 
a  word,  walked  rapidly  through  the  garden,  and  disap- 
peared into  the  house,  leaving  Will  in  some  confusion 
as  to  the  result.  He  walked  up  and  down  the  garden, 
whistling  softly  to  himself.  Sometimes  he  stopped  and 

10  contemplated  the  sky  and  hill-tops;  sometimes  he  went 
down  to  the  tail  of  the  weir  and  sat  there,  looking  fool- 
ishly in  the  water.  All  this  dubiety  and  perturbation 
was  so  foreign  to  his  nature  and  the  life  which  he  had  res- 
olutely chosen  for  himself,  that  he  began  to  regret  Mar- 

15  jory's  arrival.    "After  all,"  he  thought,  "I  was  as  happy 

as  a  man  need  be.    I  could  come  down  here  and  watch 

my  fishes  all  day  long  if  I  wanted:  I  was  as  settled  and 

contented  as  my  old  mill." 

Marjory  came  down  to  dinner,  looking  very  trim  and 

20  quiet;  and  no  sooner  were  all  three  at  table  than  she  made 
her  father  a  speech,  with  her  eyes  fixed  upon  her  plate, 
but  showing  no  other  sign  of  embarrassment  or  distress. 
"Father,"  she  began,  "Mr.  Will  and  I  have  been  talk- 
ing things  over.    We  see  that  we  have  each  made  a  mis- 

25  take  about  our  feelings,  and  he  has  agreed,  at  my  request, 
to  give  up  all  idea  of  marriage,  and  be  no  more  than  my 
very  good  friend,  as  in  the  past.  You  see,  there  is  no 
shadow  of  a  quarrel,  and  indeed  I  hope  we  shall  see  a 
great  deal  of  him  in  the  future,  for  his  visits  will  always 

30  be  welcome  in  our  house.  Of  course,  father,  you  will 
know  best,  but  perhaps  we  should  do  better  to  leave  Mr. 
Will's  house  for  the  present.  I  believe,  after  what  has 
passed,  we  should  hardly  be  agreeable  inmates  for  some 
days." 


Will  o'  the  Mill  205 

Will,  who  had  commanded  himself  with  difficulty  from 
the  first,  broke  out  upon  this  into  an  inarticulate  noise, 
and  raised  one  hand  with  an  appearance  of  real  dismay, 
as  if  he  were  about  to  interfere  and  contradict.  But  she 
checked  him  at  once,  looking  up  at  him  with  a  swift  5 
glance  and  an  angry  flush  upon  her  cheek. 

"You  will  perhaps  have  the  good  grace,"  she  said,  "to 
let  me  explain  these  matters  for  myself." 

Will  was  put  entirely  out  of  countenance  by  her  ex- 
pression and  the  ring  of  her  voice.    He  held  his  peace,  10 
concluding  that  there  were  some  things  about  this  girl 
beyond  his  comprehension,  in  which  he  was  exactly  right. 

The  poor  parson  was  quite  crestfallen.  He  tried  to 
prove  that  this  was  no  more  than  a  true  lover's  tiff,  which 
would  pass  off  before  night;  and  when  he  was  dislodged  15 
from  that  position,  he  went  on  to  argue  that  where  there 
was  no  quarrel  there  could  be  no  call  for  a  separation; 
for  the  good  man  liked  both  his  entertainment  and  his 
host.  It  was  curious  to  see  how  the  girl  managed  them, 
saying  little  all  the  time,  and  that  very  quietly,  and  yet  20 
twisting  them  round  her  finger  and  insensibly  leading 
them  wherever  she  would  by  feminine  tact  and  general- 
ship. It  scarcely  seemed  to  have  been  her  doing — it 
seemed  as  if  things  had  merely  so  fallen  out — that  she 
and  her  father  took  their  departure  that  same  afternoon  25 
in  a  farm-cart,  and  went  farther  down  the  valley,  to  wait, 
until  their  own  house  was  ready  for  them,  in  another 
hamlet.  But  Will  had  been  observing  closely,  and  was 
well  aware  of  her  dexterity  and  resolution.  When  he 
found  himself  alone  he  had  a  great  many  curious  matters  30 
to  turn  over  in  his  mind.  He  was  very  sad  and  solitary, 
to  begin  with.  All  the  interest  had  gone  out  of  his  life; 
and  he  might  look  up  at  the  stars  as  long  as  he  pleased, 
he  somehow  failed  to  find  support  or  consolation.  And 


206  Robert  Louis  Stevenson 

then  he  was  in  such  a  turmoil  of  spirit  about  Marjory. 
He  had  been  puzzled  and  irritated  at  her  behavior,  and 
yet  he  could  not  keep  himself  from  admiring  it.  He 
thought  he  recognized  a  fine  perverse  angel  in  that  still 

5  soul  which  he  had  never  hitherto  suspected;  and  though 
he  saw  it  was  an  influence  that  would  fit  but  ill  with 
his  own  life  of  artificial  calm,  he  could  not  keep  himself 
from  ardently  desiring  to  possess  it.  Like  a  man  who 
has  lived,  among  shadows  and  now  meets  the  sun,  he 

10  was  both  pained  and  delighted. 

As  the  days  went  forward  he  passed  from  one  extreme 
to  another;  now  pluming  himself  on  the  strength  of  his 
determination,  now  despising  his  timid  and  silly  caution. 
The  former  was,  perhaps,  the  true  thought  of  his  heart, 

15  and  represented  the  regular  tenor  of  the  man's  reflections; 
but  the  latter  burst  forth  from  time  to  time  with  an  unruly 
violence,  and  then  he  would  forget  all  consideration,  and 
go  up  and  down  his  house  and  garden  or  walk  among  the 
fir  woods  like  one  who  is  beside  himself  with  remorse. 

20  To  equable,  steady-minded  Will  this  state  of  matters  was 
intolerable;  and  he  determined,  at  whatever  cost,  to  bring 
it  to  an  end.  So,  one  warm  summer  afternoon  he  put  on 
his  best  clothes,  took  a  thorn  switch  in  his  hand,  and  set 
out  down  the  valley  by  the  river.  As  soon  as  he  had  taken 

25  his  determination,  he  had  regained  at  a  bound  his  cus- 
tomary peace  of  heart,  and  he  enjoyed  the  bright  weather 
and  the  variety  of  the  scene  without  any  admixture  of 
alarm  or  unpleasant  eagerness.  It  was  nearly  the  same 
to  him  how  the  matter  turned  out.  If  she  accepted  him, 

30  he  would  have  to  marry  her  this  time,  which  perhaps  was 
all  for  the  best.  If  she  refused  him,  he  would  have  done 
his  utmost,  and  might  follow  his  own  way  in  the  future 
with  an  untroubled  conscience.  He  hoped,  on  the  whole, 
she  would  refuse  him;  and  then,  again,  as  he  saw  the  brown 


Will  o'  the  Mill  207 

roof  which  sheltered  her,  peeping  through  some  willows 
at  an  angle  of  the  stream,  he  was  half  inclined  to  reverse 
the  wish,  and  more  than  half  ashamed  of  himself  for  this 
infirmity  of  purpose. 

Marjory  seemed  glad  to  see  him,  and  gave  him  her  hand    5 
without  affectation  or  delay. 

"I  have  been  thinking  about  this  marriage,"  he  began. 

"So  have  I,"  she  answered.    "And  I  respect  you  more 
and  more  for  a  very  wise  man.    You  understood  me  better 
than  I  understood  myself;  and  I  am  now  quite  certain  that  10 
things  are  all  for  the  best  as  they  are." 

"At  the  same  time—  "  ventured  Will. 

"You  must  be  tired,"  she  interrupted.     "Take  a  seat 
and  let  me  fetch  you  a  glass  of  wane.    The  afternoon  is 
so  warm;  and  I  wish  you  not  to  be  displeased  with  your  15 
visit.    You  must  come  quite  often;  once  a  week,  if  you 
can  spare  the  time;  I  am  always  so  glad  to  see  my  friends." 

"Oh,  very  well,"  thought  Will  to  himself.    "It  appears 
I  was  right  after  all."    And  he  paid  a  very  agreeable  visit, 
walked  home  again  in  capital  spirits,  and  gave  himself  no  20 
further  concern  about  the  matter. 

For  nearly  three  years  Will  and  Marjory  continued 
on  these  terms,  seeing  each  other  once  or  twice  a  week 
without  any  word  of  love  between  them;  and  for  all  that 
time  I  believe  Will  was  nearly  as  happy  as  a  man  can  be.  25 
He  rather  stinted  himself  the  pleasure  of  seeing  her;  and 
he  would  often  walk  half-way  over  to  the  parsonage,  and 
then  back  again,  as  if  to  whet  his  appetite.  Indeed  there 
was  one  corner  of  the  road,  whence  he  could  see  the  church- 
spire  wedged  into  a  crevice  of  the  valley  between  sloping  30 
fir  woods,  with  a  triangular  snatch  of  plain  by  way  of 
background,  which  he  greatly  affected  as  a  place  to  sit  and 
moralize  in  before  returning  homewards ;  and  the  peasants 
got  so  much  into  the  habit  of  finding  him  there  in  the 


208  Robert  Louis  Stevenson 

twilight  that  they  gave  it  the  name  of  "Will  o'  the  Mill's 
Corner." 

At  the  end  of  the  three  years  Marjory  played  him  a 
sad  trick  by  suddenly  marrying  somebody  else.  Will 
5  kept  his  countenance  bravely,  and  merely  remarked 
that,  for  as  little  as  he  knew  of  women,  he  had  acted  very 
prudently  in  not  marrying  her  himself  three  years  before. 
She  plainly  knew  very  little  of  her  own  mind,  and,  in 
spite  of  a  deceptive  manner,  was  as  fickle  and  flighty  as 

10  the  rest  of  them.  He  had  to  congratulate  himself  on 
an  escape,  he  said,  and  would  take  a  higher  opinion  of  his 
own  wisdom  in  consequence.  But  at  heart,  he  was  reason- 
ably displeased,  moped  a  good  deal  for  a  month  or  two, 
and  fell  away  in  flesh,  to  the  astonishment  of  his  serving- 

15  lads. 

It  was  perhaps  a  year  after  this  marriage  that  Will 
was  awakened  late  one  night  by  the  sound  of  a  horse 
galloping  on  the  road,  followed  by  precipitate  knocking 
at  the  inn-door.  He  opened  his  window- and  saw  a  farm 

20  servant,  mounted  and  holding  a  led  horse  by  the  bridle, 
who  told  him  to  make  what  haste  he  could  and  go  along 
with  him;  for  Marjory  was  dying,  and  had  sent  urgently 
to  fetch  him  to  her  bedside.  Will  was  no  horseman,  and! 
made  so  little  speed  upon  the  way  that  the  poor  young 

25  wife  was  very  near  her  end  before  he  arrived.  But  they 
had  some  minutes'  talk  in  private,  and  he  was  present  and 
wept  very  bitterly  while  she  breathed  her  last. 

DEATH 

Year  after  year  went  away  into  nothing,  with  great 
explosions  and  outcries  in  the  cities  on  the  plain;  red 
30  revolt  springing  up  and  being  suppressed  in  blood,  battle 
swaying  hither  and  thither,  patient  astronomers  in  ob- 
servatory towers  picking  out  and  christening  new  stars. 


Will  o'  the  Mill  209 

plays  being  performed  in  lighted  theaters,  people  being 
carried  into  hospitals  on  stretchers,  and  all  the  usual 
turmoil  and  agitation  of  men's  lives  in  crowded  centers. 
Up  in  Will's  valley  only  the  winds  and  seasons  made  an 
epoch;  the  fish  hung  in  the  swift  stream,  the  birds  circled  5 
overhead,  the  pine-tops  rustled  underneath  the  stars, 
the  tall  hills  stood  over  all;  and  Will  went  to  and  fro, 
minding  his  wayside  inn,  until  the  snow  began  to  thicken 
on  his  head.  His  heart  was  young  and  vigorous  and  if 
his  pulses  kept  a  sober  time,  they  still  beat  strong  and  10 
steady  in  his  wrists.  He  carried  a  ruddy  stain  on  either 
cheek,  like  a  ripe  apple;  he  stooped  a  little,  but  his  step 
was  still  firm;  and  his  sinewy  hands  were  reached  out  to  all 
men  with  a  friendly  pressure.  His  face  was  covered  with 
those  wrinkles  which  are  got  in  open  air,  and  which,  rightly  15 
looked  at,  are  no  more  than  a  sort  of  permanent  sun- 
burning;  such  wrinkles  heighten  the  stupidity  of  stupid 
faces;  but  to  a  person  like  Will,  with  his  clear  eyes  and 
smiling  mouth,  only  give  another  charm  by  testifying  to  a 
simple  and  easy  life.  His  talk  was  full  of  wise  sayings.  20 
He  had  a  taste  for  other  people;  and  other  people  had  a 
taste  for  him.  When  the  valley  was  full  of  tourists  in  the 
season,  there  were  merry  nights  in  Will's  arbor;  and  his 
views,  which  seemed  whimsical  to  his  neighbors,  were  often 
enough  admired  by  learned  people  out  of  towns  and  25 
colleges.  Indeed,  he  had  a  very  noble  old  age,  and  grew 
daily  better  known;  so  that  his  fame  was  heard  of  in  the 
cities  of  the  plain;  and  young  men  who  had  been  summer 
travelers  spoke  together  in  cafes  of  Will  o'  the  Mill  and 
his  rough  philosophy.  Many  and  many  an  invitation,  you  30 
may  be  sure,  he  had;  but  nothing  could  tempt  him  from 
his  upland  valley.  He  would  shake  his  head  and  smile 
over  his  tobacco-pipe  with  a  deal  of  meaning.  "You  come 
too  late,"  he  would  answer.  "I  am  a  dead  man  now:  I 


2io  Robert  Louis  Stevenson 

have  lived  and  died  already.  Fifty  years  ago  you  would 
have  brought  my  heart  into  my  mouth;  and  now  you  do 
not  even  tempt  me.  But  that  is  the  object  of  long  living, 
that  man  should  cease  to  care  about  life."  And  again: 
5  "There  is  only  one  difference  between  a  long  life  and  a 
good  dinner:  that,  in  the  dinner,  the  sweets  come  last." 
Or  once  more:  "  When  I  was  a  boy,  I  was  a  bit  puzzled,  and 
hardly  knew  whether  it  was  myself  or  the  world  that  was 
curious  and  worth  looking  into.  Now,  I  know  it  is  myself, 

10  and  stick  to  that." 

He  never  showed  any  symptoms  of  frailty,  but  kept 
stalwart  and  firm  to  the  last;  but  they  say  he  grew  less 
talkative  towards  the  end,  and  would  listen  to  other 
people  by  the  hour  in  an  amused  and  sympathetic  silence. 

15  Only,  when  he  did  speak,  it  was  more  to  the  point  and 
more  charged  with  old  experience.  He  drank  a  bottle 
of  wine  gladly;  above  all,  at  sunset  on  the  hill- top  or 
quite  late  at  night  under  the  stars  in  the  arbor.  The  sight 
of  something  attractive  and  unattainable  seasoned  his 

20  enjoyment,  he  would  say;  and  he  professed  he  had  lived 
long  enough  to  admire  a  candle  all  the  more  when  he  could 
compare  it  with  a  planet. 

One  night,  in  his  seventy-second  year,  he  awoke  in 
bed,  in  such  uneasiness  of  body  and  mind  that  he  arose 

25  and  dressed  himself  and  went  out  to  meditate  in  the 
arbor.  It  was  pitch  dark,  without  a  star;  the  river  was 
swollen,  and  the  wet  woods  and  meadows  loaded  the  air 
with  perfume.  It  had  thundered  during  the  day,  and  it 
promised  more  thunder  for  the  morrow.  A  murky,  stifling 

30  night  for  a  man  of  seventy- two!  Whether  it  was  the 
weather  or  the  wakefulness,  or  some  little  touch  of  fever 
in  his  old  limbs,  Will's  mind  was  besieged  by  tumultuous 
and  crying  memories.  His  boyhood,  the  night  with  the  fat 
young  man,  the  death  of  his  adopted  parents,  the  summer 


Will  o'  the  Mill  211 

days  with  Marjory,  and  many  of  those  small  circumstances, 
which  seem  nothing  to  another,  and  are  yet  the  very  gist 
of  a  man's  own  life  to  himself — things  seen,  words  heard, 
looks  misconstrued — arose  from  their  forgotten  corners 
and  usurped  his  attention.  The  dead  themselves  were  with  5 
him,  not  merely  taking  part  in  this  thin  show  of  memory 
that  defiled  before  his  brain,  but  revisiting  his  bodily 
senses  as  they  do  in  profound  and  vivid  dreams.  The  fat 
young  man  leaned  his  elbows  on  the  table  opposite; 
Marjory  came  and  went  with  an  apronful  of  flowers  be-  10 
tween  the  garden  and  the  arbor;  he  could  hear  the  old 
parson  knocking  out  his  pipe  or  blowing  his  resonant  nose. 
The  tide  of  his  consciousness  ebbed  and  flowed;  he  was 
sometimes  half  asleep  and  drowned  in  his  recollections 
of  the  past;  and.  sometimes  he  was  broad  awake,  won-  15 
dering  at  himself.  But  about  the  middle  of  the  night  he 
was  startled  by  the  voice  of  the  dead  miller  calling  to  him 
out  of  the  house  as  he  used  to  do  on  the  arrival  of  custom. 
The  hallucination  was  so  perfect  that  Will  sprang  from  his 
seat  and  stood  listening  for  the  summons  to  be  repeated;  20 
and  as.  he  listened  he  became  conscious  of  another  noise 
besides  the  brawling  of  the  river  and  the  ringing  in  his 
feverish  ears.  It  was  like  the  stir  of-  the  horses  and  the 
creaking  of  harness,  as  though  a  carriage  with  an  impatient 
team  had  been  brought  up  upon  the  road  before  the  court-  25 
yard  gate.  At  such  an  hour,  upon  this  rough  and  danger- 
ous pass,  the  supposition  was  no  better  than  absurd;  and 
Will  dismissed  it  from  his  mind,  and  resumed  his  seat 
upon  the  arbor  chair;  and  sleep  closed  over  him  again  like 
running  water.  He  was  once  again  awakened  by  the  dead  30 
miller's  call,  thinner  and  more  spectral  than  before;  and 
once  again  he  heard  the  noise  of  an  equipage  upon  the  road. 
And  so  thrice  and  four  times,  the  same  dream,  or  the  same 
fancy,  presented  itself  to  his  senses:  until  at  length,  smiling 


212  Robert  Louis  Stevenson 

to  himself  as  when  one  humors  a  nervous  child,  he  pro- 
ceeded towards  the  gate  to  set  his  uncertainty  at  rest. 

From  the  arbor  to  the  gate  was  no  great  distance,  and 
yet  it  took  Will  some  time;  it  seemed  as  if  the  dead  thick- 
5  ened  around  him  in  the  court,  and  crossed  his  path  at 
every  step.  For,  first,  he  was  suddenly  surprised  by  an 
overpowering  sweetness  of  heliotropes;  it  was  as  if  his 
garden  had  been  planted  with  this  flower  from  end  to  end, 
and  the  hot,  damp  night  had  drawn  forth  all  their  per- 

10  fumes  in  a  breath.  Now  the  heliotrope  had  been  Marjory's 
favorite  flower,  and  since  her  death  not  one  of  them  had 
ever  been  planted  in  Will's  ground. 

"I  must  be  going  crazy,"  he  thought.    "Poor  Marjory 
and  her  heliotropes  1" 

15  And  with  that  he  raised  his  eyes  towards  the  window 
that  had  once  been  hers.  If  he  had  been  bewildered 
before,  he  was  now  almost  terrified;  for  there  was  a  light 
in  the  room;  the  window  was  an  orange  oblong  as  of  yore; 
and  the  corner  of  the  blind  was  lifted  and  let  fall  as  on  the 

20  night  when  he  stood  and  shouted  to  the  stars  in  his  per- 
plexity. The  illusion  only  endured  an  instant;  but  it  left 
him  somewhat  unmanned,  rubbing  his  eyes  and  staring  at 
the  outline  of  the  house  and  the  black  night  behind  it. 
While  he  thus  stood,  and  it  seemed  as  if  he  must  have  stood 

25  there  quite  a  long  time,  there  came  a  renewal  of  the  noises 
on  the  road:  and  he  turned  in  time  to  meet  a  stranger,  who 
was  advancing  to  meet  him  across  the  court.  There  was 
something  like  the  outline  of  a  great  carriage  discernible 
on  the  road  behind  the  stranger,  and,  above  that,  a  few 

30  black  pine  tops,  like  so  many  plumes. 

"Master  Will?"  asked  the  new-comer,  in  brief  military 
fashion. 

"That  same,  sir,"  answered  Will.    "Can  I  do  anything 
to  serve  you?" 


Will  o'  the  Mill  213 

"I  have  heard  you  much  spoken  of,  Master  Will," 
returned  the  other;  "much  spoken  of,  and  well.  And 
though  I  have  both  hands  full  of  business,  I  wish  to  drink 
a  bottle  of  wine  with  you  in  your  arbor.  Before  I  go,  I 
shall  introduce  myself."  5 

Will  led  the  way  to  the  trellis,  and  got  a  lamp  lighted 
and  a  bottle  uncorked.     He  was  not  altogether  unused 
to  such  complimentary  interviews,  and  hoped  little  enough 
from  this  one,  being  schooled  by  many  disappointments. 
A  sort  of  cloud  had  settled  on  his  wits  and  prevented  him  10 
from  remembering  the  strangeness  of  the  hour.    He  moved    ' 
like  a  person  in  his  sleep;  and  it  seemed  as  if  the  lamp 
caught  fire  and  the  bottle  came  uncorked  with  the  facility 
of  thought.    Still,  he  had  some  curiosity  about  the  appear- 
ance of  his  visitor,  and  tried  in  vain  to  turn  the  light  into  15 
his  face;  either  he  handled  the  lamp  clumsily,  or  there  was 
a  dimness  over  his  eyes;  but  he  could  make  out  little  more 
than  a  shadow  at  table  with  him.    He  stared  and  stared 
at  this  shadow,  as  he  wiped  out  the  glasses,  and  began  to 
feel  cold  and  strange  about  the  heart.    The  silence  weighed  20 
upon  him,  for  he  could  hear  nothing  now,  not  even  the 
river,   but   the   drumming   of   his   own   arteries   in  his 
ears. 

"Here's  to  you,"  said  the  stranger  roughly. 

"Here  is  my  service,  sir,"  replied  Will,  sipping  his  wine,  25 
which  somehow  tasted  oddly. 

"I  understand  you  are  a  very  positive  fellow,"  pursued 
the  stranger. 

Will  made  answer  with  a  smile  of  some  satisfaction  and 
a  little  nod.  30 

"So  am  I,"  continued  the  other;  "and  it  is  the  delight 
of  my  heart  to  tramp  on  people's  corns.  I  will  have 
nobody  positive  but  myself;  not  one.  I  have  crossed  the 
whims,  in  my  time,  of  kings  and  generals  and  great  artists, 


214  Robert  Louis  Stevenson 

And  what  would  you  say,"  he  went  on,  "if  I  had  come  up 
here  on  purpose  to  cross  yours?" 

Will  had  it  on  his  tongue  to  make  a  sharp  rejoinder;  but 

the  politeness  of  an  old  innkeeper  prevailed;  and  he  held 

5  his  peace  and  made  answer  with  a  civil  gesture  of  the  hand. 

"I  have,"  said  the  stranger.  "And  if  I  did  not  hold 
you  in  a  particular  esteem,  I  should  make  no  words  about 
the  matter.  It  appears  you  pride  yourself  on  staying 
where  you  are.  You  mean  to  stick  by  your  inn.  Now  I 
mean  you  shall  come  for  a  turn  with  me  in  my  barouche; 
and  before  this  bottle's  empty,  so  you  shall." 

"That  would  be  an  odd  thing,  to  be  sure,"  replied 
Will,  with  a  chuckle.  "Why,  sir,  I  have  grown  here  like 
an  old  oak  tree;  the  Devil  himself  could  hardly  root  me 
15  up;  and  for  all  I  perceive  you  are  a  very  entertaining  old 
gentleman,  I  would  wager  you  another  bottle  you  lose 
your  pains  with  me." 

The  dimness  of  Will's  eyesight  had  been  increasing 

all  this  while ;  but  he  was  somehow  conscious  of  a  sharp  and 

20  chilling  scrutiny  which  irritated  and  yet  overmastered  him. 

"You  need  not  think,"  he  broke  out  suddenly,  in  an 
explosive,  febrile  manner  that  startled  and  alarmed  him- 
self, "that  I  am  a  stay-at-home,  because  I  fear  anything 
under  God.  God  knows  I  am  tired  enough  of  it  all;  and 
25  when  the  time  comes  for  a  longer  journey  than  ever  you 
dream  of,  I  reckon  I  shall  find  myself  prepared." 

The  stranger  emptied  his  glass  and  pushed  it  away 

from  him.    He  looked  down  for  a  little,  and  then,  leaning 

over  the  table,  tapped  Will  three  times  upon  the  forearm 

30  with  a  single  finger.     "The  time  has  come!"  he  said 

solemnly. 

An  ugly  thrill  spread  from  the  spot  he  touched.  The 
tones  of  his  voice  were  dull  and  startling,  and  echoed 
strangely  in  Will's  heart. 


Will  o'  the  Mill  215 

"I  beg  your  pardon,"  he  said,  with  some  discomposure. 
"What  do  you  mean?" 

"Look  at  me,  and  you  will  find  your  eyesight  swim. 
Raise  your  hand;  it  is  dead-heavy.     This  is  your  last 
bottle  of  wine,  Master  Will,  and  your  last  night  upon    5 
the  earth." 

"You  are  a  doctor?"  quavered  Will. 

"The  best  that  ever  was,"  replied  the  other;  "for  I 
cure  both  mind  andJ>od^Jffiith_th£_same  prescription.    I 
take  away  all  pain  and  I  forgive  all  sins;  and  where  my  10 
patients  have  gone  wrong  in  life,  I  smooth  out  all  com- 
plications and  set  them  free  again  upon  their  feet." 

"I  have  no  need  of  you,"  said  Will. 

"A  time  comes  for  all  men,  Master  Will,"  replied  the 
doctor,  "when  the  helm  is  taken  out  of  their  hands.    For  15 
you,  because  you  were  prudent  and  quiet,  it  has  been  long 
of  coming,  and  you  have  had  long  to  discipline  yourself 
for  its  reception.    You  have  seen  what  is  to  be  seen  about 
your  mill;  you  have  sat  close  all  your  days  like  a  hare  in  its 
form;  but  now  that  is  at  an  end;  and,"  added  the  doctor,  20 
getting  'on  his  feet,  "you  must  arise  and  come  with  me." 

"You  are  a  strange  physician,"  said  Will,  looking 
steadfastly  upon  his  guest. 

"I  am  a  natural  law,"  he  replied,  "and  people  call  me 
Death."  25 

"Why  did  you  not  tell  me  so  at  first?"  cried  Will.  "I 
have  been  waiting  for  you  these  many  years.  Give  me 
your  hand,  and  welcome." 

"Lean  upon  my  arm,"  said  the  stranger,  "for  already 
your  strength  abates.    Lean  on  me  heavily  as  you  need;  30 
for  though  I  am  old,  I  am  very  strong.    It  is  but  three     . 
steps  to  my  carriage,  and  there  all  your  trouble  ends. 
Why,  Will,"  he  added,  "I  have  b.en  yearning  for  you  as 
if  you  were  my  own  son;  and  of  all  the  men  that  ever  I 


216  Robert  Louis  Stevenson 

came  for  in  my  long  days,  I  have  come  for  you  most  gladly. 
I  am  caustic,  and  sometimes  offend  people  at  first  sight; 
but  I  am  a  good  friend  at  heart  to  such  as  you." 

"Since  Marjory  was  taken,"  returned  Will,  "I  declare 
5  before  God  you  were  the  only  friend  I  had  to  look  for." 

So  the  pair  went  arm  in  arm  across  the  court-yard. 

One  of  the  servants  awoke  about  this  time  and  heard 
the  noise  of  horses  pawing  before  he  dropped  asleep  again; 
all  down  the  valley  that  night  there  was  a  rushing  as  of  a 
10  smooth  and  steady  wind  descending  towards  the  plain; 
and  when  the  world  rose  next  morning,  sure  enough  Will 
o'  the  Mill  had  gone  at  last  upon  his  travels. 


THE  SIRE  DE  MALETROIT'S  DOOR 

By  ROBERT  LOUIS  STEVENSON 

DENIS  DE  BEAULIEU  was  not  yet  two-and- twenty,  but  he 
counted  himself  a  grown  man,  and  a  very  accomplished 
cavalier  into  the  bargain.  Lads  were  early  formed  in  that 
rough,  warfaring  epoch;  and  when  one  has  been  in  a 
pitched  battle  and  a  dozen  raids,  has  killed  one's  man  in  an  5 
honorable  fashion,  and  knows  a  thing  or  two  of  strategy 
and  mankind,  a  certain  swagger  in  the  gait  is  surely  to  be 
pardoned.  He  had  put  up  his  horse  with  due  care,  and 
supped  with  due  deliberation;  and  then,  in  a  very  agree- 
able frame  of  mind,  went  out  to  pay  a  visit  in  the  gray  10 
of  the  evening.  It  was  not  a  very  wise  proceeding  on  the 
young  man's  part.  He  would  have  done  better  to  remain 
beside  the  fire  or  go  decently  to  bed.  For  the  town  was 
full  of  troops  of  Burgundy  and  England  under  a  mixed 
command;  and  though  Denis  was  there  on  safe-conduct,  15 
his  safe-conduct  was  like  to  serve  him  little  on  a  chance 
encounter. 

It  was  September,  1429;  the  weather  had  fallen  sharp; 
a  flighty  piping  wind,  laden  with  showers,  beat  about  the 
township;  and  the  dead  leaves  ran  riot  along  the  streets.  20 
Here  and  there  a  window  was  already  lighted  up;  and  the 
noise  of  men-at-arms  making  merry  over  supper  within, 
came  forth  in  fits  and  was  swallowed  up  and  carried  away 
by  the  wind.    The  night  fell  swiftly;  the  flag  of  England, 
fluttering  on  the  spire  top,  grew  ever  fainter  and  fainter  25 
against  the  flying  clouds — a  black  speck  like  a  swallow  in 
the  tumultuous,  leaden  chaos  of  the  sky.    As  the  night  fell 

217 


2i 8  Robert  Louis  Stevenson 

the  wind  rose,  and  began  to  hoot  under  archways  and  roar 
amid  the  tree-tops  in  the  valley  below  the  town. 

Denis  de  Beaulieu  walked  fast  and  was  soon  knocking 
at  his  friend's  door;  but  though  he  promised  himself  to 
5  stay  only  a  little  while  and  make  an  early  return,  his  wel- 
come was  so  pleasant,  and  he  found  so  much  to  delay 
him,  that  it  was  already  long  past  midnight  before  he  said 
good-bye  upon  the  threshold.  The  wind  had  fallen  again 
in  the  meanwhile;  the  night  was  as  black  as  the  grave; 

10  not  a  star,  nor  a  glimmer  of  moonshine,  slipped  through 
the  canopy  of  cloud.  Denis  was  ill-acquainted  with  the 
intricate  lanes  of  Chateau  Landon;  even  by  daylight  he 
had  found  some  trouble  in  picking  his  way;  and  in  this 
absolute  darkness  he  soon  lost  it  altogether.  He  was 

15  certain  of  one  thing  only — to  keep  mounting  the  hill;  for 
his  friend's  house  lay  at  the  lower  end,  or  tail,  of  Chateau 
Landon,  while  the  inn  was  up  at  the  head,  under  the  great 
church  spire.  With  this  clew  to  go  upon  he  stumbled  and 
groped  forward,  now  breathing  more  freely  in  the  open 

20  places  where  there  was  a  good  slice  of  sky  overhead,  now 
feeling  along  the  wall  in  stifling  closes.  It  is  an  eerie  and 
mysterious  position  to  be  thus  submerged  in  opaque  black- 
ness in  an  almost  unknown  town.  The  silence  is  terrifying 
in  its  possibilities.  The  touch  of  cold  window  bars  to 

25  the  exploring  hand  startles  the  man  like  a  touch  of  a  toad; 
the  inequalities  of  the  pavement  shake  his  heart  into  his 
mouth;  a  piece  of  denser  darkness  threatens  an  ambuscade 
or  a  chasm  in  the  pathway;  and  where  the  air  is  brighter, 
the  houses  put  on  strange  and  bewildering  appearances,  as 

30  if  to  lead  him  further  from  his  way.  For  Denis,  who  had 
to  regain  his  inn  without  attracting  notice,  there  was  real 
danger  as  well  as  mere  discomfort  in  the  walk;  and  he 
went  warily  and  boldly  at  once,  and  at  every  corner 
paused  to  make  an  observation. 


The  Sire  de  Maletroit's  Door  219 

He  had  been  for  some  time  threading  a  lane  so  narrow 
that  he  could  touch  a  wall  with  either  hand,  when  it  began 
to  open  out  and  go  sharply  downward.  Plainly  this  lay 
no  longer  in  the  direction  of  his  inn;  but  the  hope  of  a  little 
more  light  tempted  him  forward  to  reconnoiter.  The  lane  5 
ended  in  a  terrace  with  a  bartizan  wall,  which  gave  an  out- 
look between  high  houses,  as  out  of  an  embrasure,  into  the 
valley  lying  dark  and  formless  several  hundred  feet  below. 
Denis  looked  down,  and  could  discern  a  few  tree-tops  wav- 
ing and  a  single  speck  of  brightness  where  the  river  ran  10 
across  a  weir.  The  weather  was  clearing  up,  and  the  sky 
had  lightened,  so  as  to  show  the  outline  of  the  heavier 
clouds  and  the  dark  margin  of  the  hills.  By  the  uncertain 
glimmer,  the  house  on  his  left  hand  should  be  a  place  of 
some  pretensions;  it  was  surmounted  by  several  pinnacles  15 
and  turret- tops;  the  round  stern  of  a  chapel,  with  a  fringe 
of  flying  buttresses,  projected  boldly  from  the  main  block; 
and  the  door  was  sheltered  under  a  deep  porch  carved 
with  figures  and  overhung  by  two  long  gargoyles.  The 
windows  of  the  chapel  gleamed  through  their  intricate  20 
tracery  with  a  light  as  of  many  tapers,  and  threw  out  the 
buttresses  and  the  peaked  roof  in  a  more  intense  blackness 
against  the  sky.  It  was  plainly  the  hotel  of  some  great 
family  of  the  neighborhood;  and  as  it  reminded  Denis 
of  a  town  house  of  his  own  at  Bourges,  he  stood  for  some  25 
time  gazing  up  at  it  and  mentally  gauging  the  skill  of  the 
architects  and  the  consideration  of  the  two  families. 

There  seemed  to  be  no  issue  to  the  terrace  but  the  lane 
by  which  he  had  reached  it;  he  could  only  retrace  his  steps, 
but  he  had  gained  some  notion  of  his  whereabouts,  and  30 
hoped  by  this  means  to  hit  the  main  thoroughfare  and 
speedily  regain  the  inn.  He  was  reckoning  without  that 
chapter  of  accidents  which  was  to  make  this  night  mem- 
orable above  all  others  in  his  career;  for  he  had  not  gone 


22O  Robert  Louis  Stevenson 

back  above  a  hundred  yards  before  he  saw  a  light  coming 
to  meet  him,  and  heard  loud  voices  speaking  together  in 
the  echoing  narrows  of  the  lane.  It  was  a  party  of  men- 
at-arms  going  the  night  round  with  torches.  Denis  assured 

5  himself  that  they  had  all  been  making  free  with  the  wine- 
bowl, and  were  in  no  mood  to  be  particular  about  safe- 
conducts  or  the  niceties  of  chivalrous  war.  It  was  as  like 
as  not  that  they  would  kill  him  like  a  dog  and  leave  him 
where  he  fell.  The  situation  was  inspiriting  but  nervous. 

10  Their  own  torches  would  conceal  him  from  sight,  he  re- 
flected; and  he  hoped  that  they  would  drown  the  noise  of 
his  footsteps  with  their  own  empty  voices.     If  he  were  but 
fleet  and  silent,  he  might  evade  their  notice  altogether. 
Unfortunately,  as  he  turned  to  beat  a  retreat,  his  foot 

15  rolled  upon  a  pebble;  he  fell  against  the  wall  with  an  ejac- 
ulation, and  his  sword  rung  loudly  on  the  stones.  Two  or 
three  voices  demanded  who  went  there — some  in  French, 
some  in  English;  but  Denis  made  no  reply,  and  ran  the 
faster  down  the  lane.  Once  upon  the  terrace,  he  paused 

20  to  look  back.    They  still  kept  calling  after  him,  and  just 
then  began  to  double  the  pace  in  pursuit,  with  a  consider- 
able clank  of  armor,  and  great  tossing  of  the  torchlight  to 
and  fro  in  the  narrow  jaws  of  the  passage. 
Denis  cast  a  look  around  and  darted  into  the  porch. 

25  There  he  might  escape  observation,  or — if  that  were  too 
much  to  expect — was  in  a  capital  posture  whether  for  par- 
ley or  defense.  So  thinking,  he  drew  his  sword  and  tried 
to  set  his  back  against  the  door.  To  his  surprise  it  yielded 
behind  his  weight;  and  though  he  turned  in  a  moment, 

30  continued  to  swing  back  on  oiled  and  noiseless  hinges  until 
it  stood  wide  open  on  a  black  interior.  When  things  fall 
out  opportunely  for  the  person  concerned,  he  is  not  apt  to 
be  critical  about  the  how  or  why,  his  own  immediate  per- 
sonal convenience  seeming  a  sufficient  reason  for  the 


The  Sire  de  Maletroit's  Door  221 

strangest  oddities  and  revolutions  in  our  sublunary  things; 
and  so  Denis,  without  a  moment's  hesitation,  stepped 
within,  and  partly  closed  the  door  behind  him  to  conceal 
his  place  of  refuge.  Nothing  was  further  from  his  thoughts 
than  to  close  it  altogether;  but  for  some  inexplicable  5 
reason — perhaps  by  a  spring  or  a  weight — the  ponderous 
mass  of  oak  whipped  itself  out  of  his  fingers  and  clanked 
to,  with  a  formidable  rumble  and  a  noise  like  the  falling 
of  an  automatic  bar. 

The  round,  at  that  very  moment,  debouched  upon  the  10 
terrace  and  proceeded  to  summon  him  with  shouts  and 
curses.    He  heard  them  ferreting  in  the  dark  corners;  the 
stock  of  a  lance  even  rattled  along  the  outer  surface  of  the 
door  behind  which  he  stood;  but  these  gentlemen  were  in 
too  high  a  humor  to  be  long  delayed,  and  soon  made  off  15 
down  a  corkscrew  pathway  which  had  escaped  Denis' 
observation,  and  passed  out  of  sight  and  hearing  along 
the  battlements  of  the  town. 

Denis  breathed  again.  He  gave  them  a  few  minutes' 
grace  for  fear  of  accidents,  and  then  groped  about  for  20 
some  means  of  opening  the  door  and  slipping  forth  again. 
The  inner  surface  was  quite  smooth,  not  a  handle,  not  a 
molding,  not  a  projection  of  any  sort.  He  got  his  finger- 
nails round  the  edges  and  pulled,  but  the  mass  was  im- 
movable. He  shook  it,  it  was  as  firm  as  a  rock.  Denis  de  25 
Beaulieu  frowned  and  gave  vent  to  a  little  noiseless  whistle. 
What  ailed  the  door,  he  wondered.  Why  was  it  open? 
How  came  it  to  shut  so  easily  and  so  effectually  after  him? 
There  was  something  obscure  and  underhand  about  all 
this,  that  was  little  to  the  young  man's  fancy.  It  looked  30 
like  a  snare,  and  yet  who  could  suppose  a  snare  in  such  a 
quiet  by-street  and  in  a  house  of  so  prosperous  and  even 
noble  an  exterior?  And  yet — snare  or  no  snare,  intention- 
ally or  unintentionally — here  he  was,  prettily  trapped;  and 


222  Robert  Louis  Stevenson 

for  the  life  of  him  he  could  see  no  way  out  of  it  again. 
The  darkness  began  to  weigh  upon  him.  He  gave  ear;  all 
was  silent  without,  but  within  and  close  by  he  seemed  to 
catch  a  faint  sighing,  a  faint  sobbing  rustle,  a  little  stealthy 

5  creak — as  though  many  persons  were  at  his  side,  holding 
themselves  quite  still,  and  governing  even  their  respiration 
with  the  extreme  of  slyness.  The  idea  went  to  his  vitals 
with  a  shock,  and  he  faced  about  suddenly  as  if  to  defend 
his  life.  Then,  for  the  first  time,  he  became  aware  of  a 

10  light  about  the  level  of  his  eyes  and  at  some  distance  in  the 

interior  of  the  house — a  vertical  thread  of  light,  widening 

toward  the  bottom,  such  as  might  escape  between  two 

wings  of  arras  over  a  doorway. 

To  see  anything  was  a  relief  to  Denis;  it  was  like  a 

15  piece  of  solid  ground  to  a  man  laboring  in  a  morass;  his 
mind  seized  upon  it  with  avidity;  and  he  stood  staring  at  it 
and  trying  to  piece  together  some  logical  conception  of  his 
surroundings.  Plainly  there  was  a  flight  of  steps  ascend- 
ing from  his  own  level  to  that  of  this  illuminated  doorway, 

20  and  indeed  he  thought  he  could  make  out  another  thread 
of  light,  as  fine  as  a  needle  and  as  faint  as  phosphores- 
cence, which  might  very  well  be  reflected  along  the  polished 
wood  of  a  handrail.  Since  he  had  begun  to  suspect  that 
he  was  not  alone,  his  heart  had  continued  to  beat  with 

25  smothering  violence,  and  an  intolerable  desire  for  action 
of  any  sort  had  possessed  itself  of  his  spirit.  He  was  in 
deadly  peril,  he  believed.  What  could  be  more  natural 
than  to  mount  the  staircase,  lift  the  curtain,  and  confront 
his  difficulty  at  once?  At  least  he  would  be  dealing  with 

30  something  tangible;  at  least  he  would  be  no  longer  in  the 
dark.  He  stepped  slowly  forward  with  outstretched  hands, 
until  his  foot  struck  the  bottom  step;  then  he  rapidly  scaled 
the  stairs,  stood  for  a  moment  to  compose  his  expression, 
lifted  the  arras  and  went  in. 


The  Sire  de  Maletroit's  Door  223 

He  found  himself  in  a  large  apartment  of  polished  stone. 
There  were  three  doors;  one  on  each  of  three  sides;  all 
similarly  curtained  with  tapestry.  The  fourth  side  was 
occupied  by  two  large  windows  and  a  great  stone  chimney- 
piece,  carved  with  the  arms  of  the  Maletroits.  Denis  5 
recognized  the  bearings,  and  was  gratified  to  find  himself 
in  such  good  hands.  The  room  was  strongly  illuminated; 
but  it  contained  little  furniture  except  a  heavy  table  and 
a  chair  or  two,  the  hearth  was  innocent  of  fire,  and  the 
pavement  was  but  sparsely  strewn  with  rushes  clearly  10 
many  days  old. 

On  a  high  chair  beside  the  chimney,  and  directly  facing 
Denis  as  he  entered,  sat  a  little  old  gentleman  in  a  fur 
tippet.  He  sat  with  his  legs  crossed  and  his  hands  folded, 
and  a  cup  of  spiced  wine  stood  by  his  elbow  on  a  bracket  on  15 
the  wall.  His  countenance  had  a  strong  masculine  cast; 
not  properly  human,  but  such  as  we  see  in  the  bull,  the 
goat,  or  the  domestic  boar;  something  equivocal  and 
wheedling,  something  greedy,  brutal,  and  dangerous.  The 
upper  lip  was  inordinately  full,  as  though  swollen  by  a  20 
blow  or  a  toothache;  and  the  smile,  the  peaked  eyebrows, 
and  the  small,  strong  eyes  were  quaintly  and  almost 
comically  evil  in  expression.  Beautiful  white  hair  hung 
straight  all  round  his  head,  like  a  saint's,  and  fell  in  a 
single  curl  upon  the  tippet.  His  beard  and  mustache  were  25 
the  pink  of  venerable  sweetness.  Age,  probably  in  conse- 
quence of  inordinate  precautions,  had  left  no  mark  upon 
his  hands;  and  the  Maletroit  hand  was  famous.  It  would 
be  difficult  to  imagine  anything  at  once  so  fleshy  and  so 
delicate  in  design;  the  taper,  sensual  fingers  were  like  those  30 
of  one  of  Leonardo's  women;  the  fork  of  the  thumb  made 
a  dimpled  protuberance  when  closed;  the  nails  were  per- 
fectly shaped,  and  of  a  dead,  surprising  whiteness.  It  ren- 
dered his  aspect  tenfold  more  redoubtable,  that  a  man 


224  Robert  Louis  Stevenson 

with  hands  like  these  should  keep  them  devoutly  folded 
like  a  virgin  martyr — that  a  man  with  so  intent  and  start- 
ling an  expression  of  face  should  sit  patiently  on  his  seat 
and  contemplate  people  with  an  unwinking  stare,  like  a 
5  god, 'or  a  god's  statue.  His  quiescence  seemed  ironical 
and  treacherous,  it  fitted  so  poorly  with  his  looks. 

Such  was  Alain,  Sire  de  Maletroit. 

Denis  and  he  looked  silently  at  each  other  for  a  second 
or  two. 

10      "Pray  step  in,"  said  the  Sire  de  Maletroit.     "I  have 
been  expecting  you  all  the  evening." 

He  had  not  risen  but  he  accompanied  his  words  with  a 
smile  and  a  slight  but  courteous  inclination  of  the  head. 
Partly  from  the  smile,  partly  from  the  strange  musical 
15  murmur  with  which  the  sire  prefaced  his  observation, 
Denis  felt  a  strong  shudder  of  disgust  go  through  his  mar- 
row. And  what  with  disgust  and  honest  confusion  of  mind, 
he  could  scarcely  get  words  together  in  reply. 

"I  fear,"  he  said,  "that  this  is  a  double  accident.    I  am 

20  not  the  person  you  suppose  me.    It  seems  you  were  looking 

for  a  visit;  but  for  my  part,  nothing  was  further  from  my 

thoughts — nothing  could  be  more  contrary  to  my  wishes — 

than  this  intrusion." 

"Well,  well,"  replied  the  old  gentleman  indulgently, 
25  "here  you  are,  which  is  the  main  point.    Seat  yourself,  my 
friend,  and  put  yourself  entirely  at  your  ease.    We  shall 
arrange  our  little  affairs  presently." 

Denis  perceived  that  the  matter  was  still  complicated 
with  some  misconception,  and  he  hastened  to  continue  his 
30  explanations. 

"Your  door,"  he  began. 

"About  my  door?"  asked  the  other,  raising  his  peaked 
eyebrows.  "A  little  piece  of  ingenuity."  And  he  shrugged 
his  shoulders.  "A  hospitable  fancy!  By  your  own  ac» 


The  Sire  de  Maletroit's  Door  225 

count,  you  were  not  desirous  of  making  my  acquaintance. 
We  old  people  look  for  such  reluctance  now  and  then; 
when  it  touches  our  honor,  we  cast  about  until  we  find 
some  way  of  overcoming  it.  You  arrive  uninvited,  but 
believe  me,  very  welcome."  5 

"You  persist  in  error,  sir,"  said  Denis.  " There  can  be 
no  question  between  you  and  me.  I  am  a  stranger  in  this 
countryside.  My  name  is  Denis,  damoiseau  de  Beaulieu. 
If  you  see  me  in  your  house  it  is  only " 

"My  young  friend,"  interrupted  the  other,  "you  will  10 
permit  me  to  have  my  own  ideas  on  that  subject.    They 
probably  differ  from  yours  at  the  present  moment,"  he 
added  with  a  leer,  "but  time  will  show  which  of  us  is  in  the 
right." 

Denis  was  convinced  he  had  to  do  with  a  lunatic.    He  15 
seated  himself  with  a  shrug,  content  to  wait  the  upshot; 
and  a  pause  ensued,  during  which  he  thought  he  could 
distinguish  a  hurried  gabbling  as  of  a  prayer  from  behind 
the  arras  immediately  opposite  him.     Sometimes  there 
seemed  to  be  but  one  person  engaged,  sometimes  two;  and  20 
the  vehemence  of  the  voice,  low  as  it  was,  seemed  to  indi- 
cate either  great  haste  or  an  agony  of  spirit.    It  occurred 
to  him  that  this  piece  of  tapestry  covered  the  entrance  to 
the  chapel  he  had  noticed  from  without. 

The  old  gentleman  meanwhile  surveyed  Denis  from  head  25 
to  foot  with  a  smile,  and  from  time  to  time  emitted  little 
noises  like  a  bird  or  a  mouse,  which  seemed  to  indicate  a 
high  degree  of  satisfaction.  This  state  of  matters  became 
rapidly  insupportable;  and  Denis,  to  put  an  end  to  it, 
remarked  politely  that  the  wind  had  gone  down.  30 

The  old  gentleman  fell  into  a  fit  of  silent  laughter,  so 
prolonged  and  violent  that  he  became  quite  red  in  the  face. 
Denis  got  upon  his  feet  at  once,  and  put  on  his  hat  with  a 
flourish. 


226  Robert  Louis  Stevenson 


"Sir,"  he  said,  "if  you  are  in  your  wits,  you  have  af- 
fronted me  grossly.  If  you  are  out  of  them,  I  flatter  my- 
self I  can  find  better  employment  for  my  brains  than  to 
talk  with  lunatics.  My  conscience  is  clear;  you  have  made 
5  a  fool  of  me  from  the  first  moment;  you  have  refused  to 
hear  my  explanations;  and  now  there  is  no  power  under 
God  will  make  me  stay  here  any  longer;  and  if  I  cannot 
make  my  way  out  in  a  more  decent  fashion,  I  will  hack 
your  door  in  pieces  with  my  sword." 

10      The  Sire  de  Maletroit  raised  his  right  hand  and  wagged 
it  at  Denis  with  the  fore  and  little  fingers  extended. 

"My  dear  nephew,"  he  said,  "sit  down." 

"Nephew!"  retorted  Denis,  "you' lie  in  your  throat;" 
and  he  snapped  his  fingers  in  his  face. 

15  "Sit  down,  you  rogue!"  cried  the  old  gentleman,  in  a 
sudden,  harsh  voice,  like  the  barking  of  a  dog.  "Do  you 
fancy,"  he  went  on,  "that  when  I  had  made  my  little  con- 
trivance for  the  door  I  had  stopped  short  with  that?  If 
you  prefer  to  be  bound  hand  and  foot  till  your  bones  ache, 
20  rise  and  try  to  go  away.  If  you  choose  to  remain  a  free 
young  buck,  agreeably  conversing  with  an  old  gentleman — 
why,  sit  where  you  are  in  peace,  and  God  be  with  you." 

"Do  you  mean  I  am  a  prisoner?"  demanded  Denis. 

"I  state  the  facts,"  replied  the  other.    "I  would  rather 
25  leave  the  conclusion  to  yourself." 

Denis  sat  down  again.  Externally  he  managed  to  keep 
pretty  calm,  but  within,  he  was  now  boiling  with  anger, 
now  chilled  with  apprehension.  He  no  longer  felt  con- 
vinced that  he  was  dealing  with  a  madman.  And  if  the  old 
30  gentleman  was  sane,  what,  in  God's  name,  had  he  to  look 
for?  What  absurd  or  tragical  adventure  had  befallen 
him?  What  countenance  was  he  to  assume? 

While  he  was  thus  unpleasantly  reflecting,  the  arras  that 
overhung  the  chapel  door  was  raised,  and  a  tall  priest  in 


The  Sire  de  Maletroit' s  Door  227 

his  robes  came  forth,  and,  giving  a  long,  keen  stare  at 
Denis,  said  something  in  an  undertone  to  Sire  de  Maletroit. 

"She  is  in  a  better  frame  of  spirit?"  asked  the  latter. 

"She  is  more  resigned,  messire,"  replied  the  priest. 

"  Now,  the  Lord  help  her,  she  is  hard  to  please ! "  sneered    5 
the  old  gentleman.    "A  likely  stripling — not  ill-born — and 
of  her  own  choosing,  too!    Why,  what  more  would  the 
jade  have?  " 

"The  situation  is  not  usual  for  a  young  damsel,'7  said 
the  other,  "and  somewhat  trying  to  her  blushes."  10 

"  She  should  have  thought  of  that  before  she  began  the 
dance!  It  was  none  of  my  choosing,  God  knows  that;  but 
since  she  is  in  it,  by  our  Lady,  she  shall  carry  it  to  the 
end."  And  then  addressing  Denis,  "Monsieur  de  Beau- 
lieu,"  he  asked,  "may  I  present  you  to  my  niece?  She  has  15 
been  waiting  your  arrival,  I  may  say,  with  even  greater 
impatience  than  myself." 

Denis  had  resigned  himself  with  a  good  grace — all  he 
desired  was  to  know  the  worst  of  it  as  speedily  as  possible; 
so  he  rose  at  once,  and  bowed  in  acquiescence.  The  Sire  20 
de  Maletroit  followed  his  example  and  limped,  with  the 
assistance  of  the  chaplain's  arm,  toward  the  chapel  door. 
The  priest  pulled  aside  the  arras,  and  all  three  entered. 
The  building  had  considerable  architectural  pretensions. 
A  light  groining  sprung  from  six  stout  columns,  and  hung  25 
down  in  two  rich  pendants  from  the  center  of  the  vault. 
The  place  terminated  behind  the  altar  in  a  round  end, 
embossed  and  honeycombed  with  a  superfluity  of  ornament 
in  relief,  and  pierced  by  many  little  windows  shaped  like 
stars,  trefoils,  or  wheels.  These  windows  were  imperfectly  30 
glazed,  so  that  the  night  air  circulated  freely  in  the  chapel. 
The  tapers,  of  which  there  must  have  been  half  a  hundred 
burning  on  the  altar,  were  unmercifully  blown  about;  and 
the  light  went  through  many  different  phases  of  brilliancy 


228  Robert  Louis  Stevenson 

and  semi-eclipse.  On  the  steps  in  front  of  the  altar  knelt  a 
young  girl  richly  attired  as  a  bride.  A  chill  settled  over 
Denis  as  he  observed  her  costume;  he  fought  with  desperate 
energy  against  the  conclusion  that  was  being  thrust  upon 
5  his  mind;  it  could  not — it  should  not — be  as  he  feared. 

"Blanche,"  said  the  sire,  in  his  most  flute-like  tones,  "I 
have  brought  a  friend  to  see  you,  my  little  girl;  turn  round 
and  give  him  your  pretty  hand.  It  is  good  to  be  devout; 
but  it  is  necessary  to  be  polite,  my  niece." 

10  The  girl  rose  to  her  feet  and  turned  toward  the  new- 
comers. She  moved  all  of  a  piece;  and  shame  and  exhaus- 
tion were  expressed  in  every  line  of  her  fresh  young  body; 
and  she  held  her  head  down  and  kept  her  eyes  upon  the 
pavement,  as  she  came  slowly  forward.  In  the  course  of 

15  her  advance  her  eyes  fell  upon  Denis  de  Beaulieu's  feet — • 
feet  of  which  he  was  justly  vain,  be  it  remarked,  and  wrore 
in  the  most  elegant  accouterment  even  while  traveling. 
She  paused — started,  as  if  his  yellow  boots  had  conveyed 
some  shocking  meaning — and  glanced  suddenly  up  into  the 

20  wearer's  countenance.  Their  eyes  met;  shame  gave  place 
to  horror  and  terror  in  her  looks;  the  blood  left  her  lips, 
with  a  piercing  scream  she  covered  her  face  with  her  hands 
and  sank  upon  the  chapel  floor. 

"That  is  not  the  man!"  she  cried.    "My  uncle,  that  is 

25  not  the  man!" 

The  Sire  de  Maletroit  chirped  agreeably.  "Of  course 
not,"  he  said;  " I  expected  as  much.  It  was  so  unfortunate 
you  could  not  remember  his  name." 

"Indeed,"  she  cried,  "indeed,  I  have  never  seen  this 

30  person  till  this  moment — I  have  never  so  much  as  set  eyes 
upon  him — I  never  wish  to  see  him  again.  Sir,"  she  said, 
turning  to  Denis,  "if  you  are  a  gentleman,  you  will  bear 
me  out.  Have  I  ever  seen  you — have  you  ever  seen  me — 
before  this  accursed  hour?" 


The  Sire  de  Maletroit's  Door  229 

"To  speak  for  myself,  I  have  never  had  that  pleasure," 
answered  the  young  man.  "This  is  the  first  time,  messire, 
that  I  have  met  with  your  engaging  niece." 

The  old  gentleman  shrugged  his  shoulders. 

"I  am  distressed  to  hear  it,"  he  said.    "But  it  is  never    5 
too  late  to  begin.    I  had  little  more  acquaintance  with  my 
own  late  lady  ere  I  married  her;  which  proves,"  he  added, 
with  a  grimace,  "that  these  impromptu  marriages  may 
often  produce  an  excellent  understanding  in  the  long  run. 
As  the  bridegroom  is  to  have  a  voice  in  the  matter,  I  will  10 
give  him  two  hours  to  make  up  for  lost  time  before  we 
proceed  with  the  ceremony."    And  he  turned  toward  the 
door,  followed  by  the  clergyman. 

The  girl  was  on  her  feet  in  a  moment.  "My  uncle,  you 
cannot  be  in  earnest,"  she  said.  "I  declare  before  God  I  15 
will  stab  myself  rather  than  be  forced  on  that  young  man. 
The  heart  rises  at  it;  God  forbids  such  marriages;  you 
dishonor  your  white  hair.  Oh,  my  uncle,  pity  me!  There 
is  not  a  woman  in  all  the  world  but  would  prefer  death 
to  such  a  nuptial.  Is  it  possible,"  she  added,  faltering —  20 
"is  it  possible  that  you  do  not  believe  me — that  you  still 
think  this" — and  she  pointed  at  Denis  with  a  tremor  of 
anger  and  contempt —  "that  you  still  think  this  to  be  the 
man?" 

"Frankly,"   said  the  old  gentleman,  pausing  on  the  25 
threshold,  "I  do.    But  let  me  explain  to  you  once  for  all, 
Blanche  de  Maletroit,  my  way  of  thinking  about  this 
affair.    When  you  took  it  into  your  head  to  dishonor  my 
family  and  the  name  that  I  have  borne,  in  peace  and  war, 
for  more  than  threescore  years,  you  forfeited,  not  only  the  30 
right  to  question  my  designs,  but  that  of  looking  me  in  the 
face.    If  your  father  had  been  alive,  he  would  have  spat  on 
you  and  turned  you  out  of  doors.    His  was  the  hand  of 
iron.    You  may  bless  your  God  you  have  only  to  deal  with 


230  Robert  Louis  Stevenson 

the  hand  of  velvet,  mademoiselle.  It  was  my  duty  to  get 
you  married  without  delay.  Out  of  pure  good- will,  I  have 
tried  to  find  your  own  gallant  for  you.  And  I  believe  I 
have  succeeded.  But  before  God  and  all  the  holy  angels, 
5  Blanche  de  Mabtroit,  if  I  have  not,  I  care  not  one  jack- 
straw.  So  let  me  recommend  you  to  be  polite  to  our  young 
friend;  for,  upon  my  word,  your  next  groom  may  be  less 
appetizing." 

And  with  that  he  went  out,  with  the  chaplain  at  his 
10  fieels;  and  the  arras  fell  behind  the  pair. 

The  girl  turned  upon  Denis  with  flashing  eyes. 
"And  what,  sir,"  she  demanded,  "may  be  the  meaning 
of  all  this?" 

"God  knows,"  returned  Denis,  gloomily.    "I  am  a  pris- 
15  oner  in  this  house,  which  seems  full  of  mad  people.    More 
I  know  not;  and  -nothing  do  I  understand." 
"And  pray  how  came  you  here?"  she  asked. 
He  told  her  as  briefly  as  he  could.    "For  the  rest,"  he 
added,  "perhaps  you  will  follow  my  example,  and  tell  me 
20  the  answer  to  all  these  riddles,  and  what,  in  God's  name,  is 
like  to  be  the  end  of  it." 

She  stood  silent  for  a  little,  and  he  could  see  her  lips 
tremble  and  her  tearless  eyes  burn  with  a  feverish  luster. 
Then  she  pressed  her  forehead  in  both  hands. 
25  "Alas,  how  my  head  aches!"  she  said,  wearily — "to  say 
nothing  of  my  poor  heart!  But  it  is  due  to  you  to  know 
my  story,  unmaidenly  as  it  must  seem.  I  am  called 
Blanche  de  Maletroit;  I  have  been  without  father  or 
mother  for — oh!  for  as  long  as  I  can  recollect,  and  indeed  I 
30  have  been  most  unhappy  all  my  life.  Three  months  ago  a 
young  captain  began  to  stand  near  me  every  day  in  church. 
I  could  see  that  I  pleased  him;  I  am  much  to  blame,  but  I 
was  so  glad  that  any  one  should  love  me;  and  when  he 
passed  me  a  letter,  I  took  it  home  with  me  and  read  it 


The  Sire  de  Maletroit's  Door  231 

with  great  pleasure.  Since  that  time  he  has  written 
many.  He  was  so  anxious  to  speak  with  me,  poor  fellow! 
and  kept  asking  me  to  leave  the  door  open  some  evening 
that  we  might  have  two  words  upon  the  stair.  For  he 
knew  how  much  my  uncle  trusted  me."  She  gave  some-  5 
thing  like  a  sob  at  that,  and  it  was  a  moment  before  she 
could  go  on.  "My  uncle  is  a  hard  man,  but  he  is  very 
shrewd,"  she  said  at  last.  "He  has  performed  many 
feats  in  war,  and  was  a  great  person  at  court,  and  much 
trusted  by  Queen  Isabeau  in  old  days.  How  he  came  to  10 
suspect  me  I  cannot  tell;  but  it  is  hard  to  keep  anything 
from  his  knowledge;  and  this  morning,  as  we  came  from 
mass,  he  took  my  hand  in  his,  forced  it  open,  and  read 
my  little  billet,  walking  by  my  side  all  the  while. 

"When  he  finished,  he  gave  it  back  to  me  with  great  15 
politeness.    It  contained  another  request  to  have  the  door 
left  open;  and  this  has  been  the  ruin  of  us  all.    My  uncle 
kept  me  strictly  in  my  room  until  evening,  and  then 
ordered  me  to  dress  myself  as  you  see  me — a  hard  mockery 
for  a  young  girl,  do  you  not  think  so?    I  suppose,  when  he  20 
could  not  prevail  with  me  to  tell  him  the  young  captain's 
name,  he  must  have  laid  a  trap  for  him;  into  which,  alas! 
you  have  fallen  in  the  anger  of  God.    I  looked  for  much 
confusion;  for  how  could  I  tell  whether  he  was  willing  to 
take  me  for  his  wife  on  these  sharp  terms?    He  might  have  25 
been  trifling  with  me  from  the  first;  or  I  might  have  made 
myself  too  cheap  in  his  eyes.    But  truly  I  had  not  looked 
for  such  a  shameful  punishment  as  this !    I  could  not  think 
that  God  would  let  a  girl  be  so  disgraced  before  a  young 
man.    And  now  I  tell  you  all;  and  I  can  scarcely  hope  that  30 
you  will  not  despise  me." 

Denis  made  her  a  respectful  inclination. 

"Madam,"  he  said,  "you  have  honored  me  by  your 
confidence.    It  remains  for  me  to  prove  that  I  am  .not 


232  Robert  Louis  Stevenson 

unworthy  of  the  honor.     Is   Messire   de  Maletroit  at 
hand?" 

"I  believe  he  is  writing  in  the  salle  without,"  she  an- 
swered. 

5      "May  I  lead  you  thither,  madam?"     asked  Denis, 
offering  his  hand  with  his  most  courtly  bearing. 

She  accepted  it;  and  the  pair  passed  out  of  the  chapel, 
Blanche  in  a  very  drooping  and  shamefast  condition,  but 
Denis  strutting  and  ruffling  in  the  consciousness  of  a  mis- 

10  sion,  and  the  boyish  certainty  of  accomplishing  it  with 
honor. 

The  Sire  de  Maletroit  rose  to  meet  them  with  an  ironical 
obeisance. 

"Sir,"  said  Denis,  with  the  grandest  possible  air,  "I 

15  believe  I  am  to  have  some  say  in  the  matter  of  this  mar- 
riage; and  let  me  tell  you  at  once,  I  will  be  no  party  to 
forcing  the  inclination  of  this  young  lady.  Had  it  been 
freely  offered  to  me,  I  should  have  been  proud  to  accept 
her  hand,  for  I  perceive  she  is  as  good  as  she  is  beautiful; 

20  but  as  things  are,  I  have  now  the  honor,  messire,  of  re- 
fusing." 

Blanche  looked  at  him  with  gratitude  in  her  eyes;  but 
the  old  gentleman  only  smiled  and  smiled,  until  his  smile 
grew  positively  sickening  to  Denis. 

25  "  I  am  afraid,"  he  said,  "  Monsieur  de  Beaulieu,  that  you 
do  not  perfectly  understand  the  choice  I  have  offered  you. 
Follow  me,  I  beseech  you,  to  this  window."  And  he  led 
the  way  to  one  of  the  large  windows  which  stood  open  on 
the  night.  "You  observe,"  he  went  on,  "there  is  an  iron 

30  ring  in  the  upper  masonry,  and  reeved  through  that,  a  very 
efficacious  rope.  Now,  mark  my  words:  if  you  should  find 
your  disinclination  to  my  niece's  person  insurmountable,  I 
shall  have  you  hanged  out  of  this  window  before  sunrise. 
I  shall  only  proceed  to  such  an  extremity  with  the  greatest 


The  Sire  de  Maletroit's  Door  233 

regret,  you  may  believe  me.  For  it  is  not  at  all  your  death 
that  I  desire,  but  my  niece's  establishment  in  life.  At  the 
same  time,  it  must  come  to  that  if  you  prove  obstinate. 
Your  family,  Monsieur  de  Beaulieu,  is  very  well  in  its  way, 
but  if  you  sprung  from  Charlemagne,  you  should  not  refuse  5 
the  hand  of  a  Maletroit  with  impunity — not  if  she  had  been 
as  common  as  the  Paris  road — not  if  she  was  as  hideous 
as  the  gargoyle  over  my  door.  Neither  my  niece  nor  you, 
nor  my  own  private  feelings,  move  me  at  all  in  this  matter. 
The  honor  of  my  house  has  been  compromised;  I  believe  10 
you  to  be  the  guilty  person,  at  least  you  are  now  in  the 
secret;  and  you  can  hardly  wonder  if  I  request  you  to 
wipe  out  the  stain.  If  you  will  not,  your  blood  be  on  your 
own  head!  It  will  be  no  great  satisfaction  to  me  to  have 
your  interesting  relics  kicking  their  heels  in  the  breeze  15 
below  my  windows,  but  half  a  loaf  is  better  than  no  bread, 
and  if  I  cannot  cure  the  dishonor,  I  shall  at  least  stop  the 
scandal." 

There  was  a  pause. 

"I  believe  there  are  other  ways  of  settling  such  im-  20 
broglios  among  gentlemen,"  said  Denis.     "You  wear  a 
sword,  and  I  hear  you  have  used  it  with  distinction." 

The  Sire  de  Maletroit  made  a  signal  to  the  chaplain,  who 
crossed  the  room  with  long  silent  strides  and  raised  the 
arras  over  the  third  of  the  three  doors.     It  was  only  a  25 
moment  before  he  let  it  fall  again;  but  Denis  had  time 
to  see  a  dusky  passage  full  of  armed  men. 

"When  I  was  a  little  younger,  I  should  have  been  de- 
lighted to  honor  you,  Monsieur  de  Beaulieu,"  said  Sire 
Alain;  "but  I  am  now  too  old.  Faithful  retainers  are  the  30 
sinews  of  age,  and  I  must  employ  the  strength  I  have. 
This  is  one  of  the  hardest  things  to  swallow  as  a  man 
grows  up  in  years;  but  with  a  little  patience,  even  this 
becomes  habitual.  You  and  the  lady  seem  to  prefer  the 


234  Robert  Louis  Stevenson 

salle  for  what  remains  of  your  two  hours;  and  as  I  have  no 
desire  to  cross  your  preference,  I  shall  resign  it  to  your  use 
with  all  the  pleasure  in  the  world.  No  haste!"  he  added, 
holding  up  his  hand,  as  he  saw  a  dangerous  look  come  into 

5  Denis  de  Beaulieu's  face.  "If  your  mind  revolt  against 
hanging,  it  will  be  time  enough  two  hours  hence  to  throw 
yourself  out  of  the  window  or  upon  the  pikes  of  my  re- 
tainers. Two  hours  of  life  are  always  two  hours.  A 
great  many  things  may  turn  up  in  even  as  little  a  while 

10  as  that.  And,  besides,  if  I  understand  her  appearance, 
my  niece  has  something  to  say  to  you.  You  will  not  dis- 
figure your  last  hours  by  a  want  of  politeness  to  a 
lady?" 

Denis  looked  at  Blanche,  and  she  made  him  an  imploring 

15  gesture. 

It  is  likely  that  the  old  gentleman  was  hugely  pleased 
at  this  symptom  of  an  understanding;  for  he  smiled  on 
both,  and  added  sweetly:  "If  you  will  give  me  your  word 
of  honor,  Monsieur  de  Beaulieu,  to  await  my  return  at  the 

20  end  of  the  two  hours  before  attempting  anything  desper- 
ate, I  shall  withdraw  my  retainers,  and  let  you  speak  in 
greater  privacy  with  mademoiselle." 

Denis  again  glanced  at  the  girl,  who  seemed  to  beseech 
him  to  agree. 

25      "I  give  you  my  word  of  honor,"  he  said. 

Messire  de  Maletroit  bowed,  and  proceeded  to  limp 
about  the  apartment,  clearing  his  throat  the  while  with 
that  odd  musical  chirp  which  had  already  grown  so  ir- 
ritating in  the  ears  of  Denis  de  Beaulieu.  He  first  possessed 

30  himself  of  some  papers  which  lay  upon  the  table;  then  he 
went  to  the  mouth  of  the  passage  and  appeared  to  give  an 
order  to  the  men  behind  the  arras;  and  lastly  he  hobbled 
out  through  the  door  by  which  Denis  had  come  in,  turning 
upon  the  threshold  to  address  a  last  smiling  bow  to  the 


The  Sire  de  Maletroit's  Door  235 

young  couple,  and  followed  by  the  chaplain  with  a  hand- 
lamp. 

No  sooner  were  they  alone  than  Blanche  advanced 
toward  Denis  with  her  hands  extended.  Her  face  was 
flushed  and  excited,  and  her  eyes  shone  with  tears. 

"You  shall  not  die!"  she  cried,  "you  shall  marry  me 
after  all." 

"You  seem  to  think,  madam,"  replied  Denis,  "that  I 
stand  much  in  fear  of  death." 

"Oh,  no,  no,"  she  said,  "I  see  you  are  no  poltroon.    It  ic 
is  for  my  own  sake — I  could  not  bear  to  have  you  slain  for 
such  a  scruple." 

"I  am  afraid,"  returned  Denis,  "that  you  underrate  the 
difficulty,  madam.    What  you  may  be  too  generous  to  re- 
fuse, I  may  be  too  proud  to  accept.    In  a  moment  of  noble  15 
feeling  toward  me,  you  forget  what  you  perhaps  owe  to 
others." 

He  had  the  decency  to  keep  his  eyes  on  the  floor  as  he 
said  this,  and  after  he  had  finished,  so  as  not  to  spy  upon 
her  confusion.  She  stood  silent  for  a  moment,  then  walked  20 
suddenly  away,  and  falling  on  her  uncle's  chair,  fairly 
burst  out  sobbing.  Denis  was  in  the  acme  of  embarrass- 
ment. He  looked  round,  as  if  to  seek  for  inspiration,  and 
seeing  a  stool,  plumped  down  upon  it  for  something  to  do. 
There  he  sat,  playing  with  the  guard  of  his  rapier,  and,  25 
wishing  himself  dead  a  thousand  times  over,  and  buried  in 
the  nastiest  kitchen-heap  in  France.  His  eyes  wandered 
round  the  apartment,  but  found  nothing  to  arrest  them. 
There  were  such  wide  spaces  between  the  furniture,  the 
light  fell  so  badly  and  cheerlessly  over  all,  the  dark  out-  30 
side  air  looked  in  so  coldly  through  the  windows,  that  he 
thought  he  had  never  seen  a  church  so  vast,  nor  a  tomb  so 
melancholy.  The  regular  sobs  of  Blanche  de  Maletroit 
measured  out  the  time  like  the  ticking  of  a  clock.  He  read 


236  Robert  Louis  Stevenson 

the  device  upon  the  shield  over  and  over  again,  until  his 
eyes  became  obscured;  he  stared  into  shadowy  corners 
until  he  imagined  they  were  swarming  with  horrible  ani- 
mals; and  every  now  and  again  he  awoke  with  a  start,  to 
5  remember  that  his  last  two  hours  were  running,  and  death 
was  on  the  march. 

Oftener  and  oftener,  as  the  time  went  on,  did  his  glance 
settle  on  the  girl  herself.  Her  face  was  bowed  forward  and 
covered  with  her  hands,  and  she  was  shaken  at  intervals 

10  by  the  convulsive  hiccough  of  grief.  Even  thus  she  was 
not  an  unpleasant  object  to  dwell  upon,  so  plump  and  yet 
so  fine,  with  a  warm  brown  skin,  and  the  most  beautiful 
hair,  Denis  thought,  in  the  whole  world  of  womankind. 
Her  hands  were  like  her  uncle's:  but  they  were  more  in 

15  place  at  the  end  of  her  young  arms,  and  looked  infinitely 
soft  and  caressing.  He  remembered  how  her  blue  eyes 
had  shone  upon  him,  full  of  anger,  pity,  and  innocence. 
And  the  more  he  dwelt  on  her  perfections,  the  uglier  death 
looked,  and  the  more  deeply  was  he  smitten  with  penitence 

20  at  her  continued  tears.    Now  he  felt  that  no  man  could 

have  the  courage  to  leave  a  world  which  contained  so 

beautiful  a  creature;  and  now  he  would  have  given  forty 

minutes  of  his  last  hour  to  have  unsaid  his  cruel  speech. 

Suddenly  a  hoarse  and  ragged  peal  of  cockcrow  rose  to 

a*  their  ears  from  the  dark  valley  below  the  windows.  And 
this  shattering  noise  in  the  silence  of  all  around  was  like  a 
light  in  a  dark  place,  and  shook  them  both  out  of  their 
reflections. 

"Alas,  can  I  do  nothing  to  help  you?"  she  said,  looking 

30  up. 

"Madam,"  replied  Denis,  with  a  fine  irrelevancy,  "if  I 
have  said  anything  to  wound  you,  believe  me,  it  was  for 
your  own  sake  and  not  for  mine." 
She  thanked  him  with  a  tearful  look. 


The  Sire  de  Maletroit's  Door  237 

"I  feel  your  position  cruelly,"  he  went  on.  "The  world 
has  been  bitter  hard  on  you.  Your  uncle  is  a  disgrace  to 
mankind.  Believe  me,  madam,  there  is  no  young  gentle- 
man in  all  France  but  would  be  glad  of  my  opportunity, 
to  die  in  doing  you  a  momentary  service."  5 

"I  know  already  that  you  can  be  very  brave  and  gener- 
ous," she  answered.  "What  I  want  to  know  is  whether  I 
can  serve  you — now  or  afterward,"  she  added,  with  a 
quaver. 

"Most  certainly,"  he  answered,  with  a  smile.    "Let  me  10 
sit  beside  you  as  if  I  were  a  friend,  instead  of  a  foolish 
intruder;  try  to  forget  how  awkwardly  we  are  placed  to 
one  another;  make  my  last  moments  go  pleasantly;  and 
you  will  do  me  the  chief  service  possible." 

"You  are  very  gallant,"  she  added,  with  a  yet  deeper  15 
sadness — "very  gallant — and  it  somehow  pains  me.    But 
draw  nearer,  if  you  please;  and  if  you  find  anything  to 
say  to  me,  you  will  at  least  make  certain  of  a  very  friendly 
listener.    Ah!  Monsieur  de  Beaulieu,"  she  broke  forth — 
"ah!  Monsieur  de  Beaulieu,  how  can  I  look  you  in  the  20 
face?"     And  she  fell  to  weeping  again  with  a  renewed 
effusion. 

"Madam,"  said  Denis,  taking  her  hand  in  both  of  his, 
"reflect  on  the  little  time  I  have  before  me,  and  the  great 
bitterness  into  which  I  am  cast  by  the  sight  of  your  dis-  25 
tress.     Spare  me,  in  my  last  moments,  the  spectacle  of 
what  I  cannot  cure  even  with  the  sacrifice  of  my  life." 

"I  am  very  selfish,"  answered  Blanche.  "I  will  te 
braver,  Monsieur  de  Beaulieu,  for  your  sake.  But  think  if 
I  can  do  you  no  kindness  in  the  future — if  you  have  no  30 
friends  to  whom  I  could  carry  your  adieus.  Charge  me  as 
heavily  as  you  can;  every  burden  will  lighten,  by  so  little, 
the  invaluable  gratitude  I  owe  you.  Put  it  in  my  power 
to  do  something  more  for  you  than  weep." 


238  Robert  Louis  Stevenson 

"My  mother  is  married  again,  and  has  a  young  family 
to  care  for.  My  brother  Guichard  will  inherit  my  fiefs; 
and  if  I  am  not  in  error,  that  will  content  him  amply  for 
my  death.  Life  is  a  little  vapor  that  passeth  away,  as  we 
5  are  told  by  those  in  holy  orders.  When  a  man  is  in  a  fair 
way  and  sees  all  life  open  in  front  of  him,  he  seems  to  him- 
self to  make  a  very  important  figure  in  the  world.  His 
horse  whinnies  to  him;  the  trumpets  blow  and  the  girls 
look  out  of  window  as  he  rides  into  town  before  his  com- 

10  pany;  he  receives  many  assurances  of  trust  and  regard — • 
sometimes  by  express  in  a  letter — sometimes  face  to  face, 
with  persons  of  great  consequence  falling  on  his  neck.  It 
is  not  wonderful  if  his  head  is  turned  for  a  time.  But  once 
he  is  dead,  were  he  as  brave  as  Hercules  or  as  wise  as 

15  Solomon,  he  is  soon  forgotten.  It  is  not  ten  years  since  my 
father  fell,  with  many  other  knights  around  him,  in  a  very 
fierce  encounter,  and  I  do  not  think  that  any  one  of  them, 
nor  as  much  as  the  name  of  the  fight,  is  now  remembered. 
No,  no,  madam,  the  nearer  you  come  to  it,  you  see  that 

20  death  is  a  dark  and  dusty  corner,  where  a  man  gets  into  his 
tomb  and  has  the  door  shut  after  him  till  the  judgment 
day.  I  have  few  friends  just  now,  and  once  I  am  dead  I 
shall  have  none." 

"Ah,  Monsieur  de  Beaulieu!"  she  exclaimed,  "you  for- 

25  get  Blanche  de  Maletroit." 

"You  have  a  sweet  nature,  madam,  and  you  are  pleased 
to  estimate  a  little  service  far  beyond  its  worth." 

"  It  is  not  that,"  she  answered.    "  You  mistake  me  if  you 
think  I  am  easily  touched  by  my  own  concerns.    I  say  so 

30  because  you  are  the  noblest  man  I  have  ever  met;  because 
I  recognize  in  you  a  spirit  that  would  have  made  even  a 
common  person  famous  in  the  land." 

"And  yet  here  I  die  in  a  mousetrap — with  no  more  noise 
about  it  than  my  own  squeaking,"  answered  he. 


The  Sire  de  Maletroit's  Door  239 

A  look  of  pain  crossed  her  face  and  she  was  silent  for  a 
little  while.  Then  a  light  came  into  her  eyes,  and  with  a 
smile  she  spoke  again. 

"I  cannot  have  my  champion  think  meanly  of  himself. 
Any  one  who  gives  his  life  for  another  will  be  met  in    5 
Paradise  by  all  the  heralds  and  angels  of  the  Lord  God. 

And  you  have  no  such  cause  to  hang  your  head.    For 

Pray,  do  you  think  me  beautiful?"  she  asked,  with  a  deep 
flush. 

"Indeed,  madam,  I  do,"  he  said.  10 

"I  am  glad  of  that,"  she  answered  heartily.  "Do  you 
think  there  are  many  men  in  France  who  have  been  asked 
in  marriage  by  a  beautiful  maiden — with  her  own  lips — 
and  who  have  refused  her  to  her  face?  I  know  you  men 
would  half  despise  such  a  triumph;  but  believe  me,  we  15 
women  know  more  of  what  is  precious  in  love.  There  is 
nothing  that  should  set  a  person  higher  in  his  own  esteem; 
and  we  women  would  prize  nothing  more  dearly." 

"You  are  very  good,"  he  said;  "but  you  cannot  make 
me  forget  that  I  was  asked  in  pity  and  not  for  love."  20 

"I  am  not  so  sure  of  that,"  she  replied,  holding  down  her 
head.  "Hear  me  to  an  end,  Monsieur  de  Beaulieu.  I 
know  how  you  must  despise  me;  I  feel  you  are  right  to  do 
so;  I  am  too  poor  a  creature  to  occupy  one  thought  of  your 
mind,  although,  alas!  you  must  die  for  me  this  morning.  25 
But  when  I  asked  you  to  marry  me,  indeed,  and  indeed,  it 
was  because  I  respected  and  admired  you,  and  loved  you 
with  my  whole  soul,  from  the  very  moment  that  you  took 
my  part  against  my  uncle.  If  you  had  seen  yourself,  and 
how  noble  you.  looked,  you  would  pity  rather  than  despise  30 
me.  And  now,"  she  went  on,  hurriedly  checking  him  with 
her  hand,  "although  I  have  laid  aside  all  reserve  and 
told  you  so  much,  remember  that  I  know  your  sentiments 
toward  me  already.  I  would  not,  believe  me,  being  nobly 


249  Robert  Louis  Stevenson 

born,  weary  you  with  importunities  into  consent.    I  too 
have  a  pride  of  my  own;  and  I  declare  before  the  holy 
mother  of  God,  if  you  should  now  go  back  from  your  word 
already  given,  I  would  no  more  marry  you  than  I  would 
5  marry  my  uncle's  groom." 
Denis  smiled  a  little  bitterly. 

"It  is  a  small  love,"  he  said,  "that  shies  at  a  little  pride." 
She  made  no  answer,  although  she  probably  had  her  own 
thoughts. 

10  "Come  hither  to  the  window,"  he  said  with  a  sigh. 
"Here  is  the  dawn." 

And  indeed  the  dawn  was  already  beginning.    The  hol- 
low of  the  sky  was  full  of  essential  daylight,  colorless  and 
clean;  and  the  valley  underneath  was  flooded  with  a  gray 
15  reflection.    A  few  thin  vapors  clung  in  the  coves  of  the 
forest  or  lay  along  the  winding  course  of  the  river.    The 
scene  disengaged  a  surprising  effect  of  stillness,  which  was 
hardly  interrupted  when  the  cocks  began  once  more  to 
crow  among  the  steadings.    Perhaps  the  same  fellow  who 
20  had  made  so  horrid  a  clangor  in  the  darkness  not  half  an 
hour  before,  now  sent  up  the  merriest  cheer  to  greet  the 
coming  day.     A  little  wind  went  bustling  and  eddying 
among  the  tree-tops  underneath  the  windows.    And  still 
the  daylight  kept  flooding  insensibly  out  of  the  east,  which 
25  was  soon  to  grow  incandescent  and  cast  up  that  red-hot 
cannon-ball,  the  rising  sun. 

Denis  looked  out  over  all  this  with  a  bit  of  a  shiver. 
He  had  taken  her  hand,  and  retained  it  in  his  almost 
unconsciously. 

30  "Has  the  day  begun  already?"  she  said;  and  then  illog- 
ically  enough:  "the  night  has  been  so  long!  Alas!  what 
shall  we  say  to  my  uncle  when  he  returns?  " 

"What  you  will,"  said  Denis,  and  he  pressed  her  fingers 
in  his. 


The  Sire  de  Maletroit's  Door  241 

She  was  silent. 

"Blanche,"  he  said,  with  a  swift,  uncertain,  passionate 
utterance,  "you  have  seen  whether  I  fear  death.  You 
must  know  well  enough  that  I  would  as  gladly  leap  out  of 
that  window  into  the  empty  air  as  to  lay  a  finger  on  you  5 
without  your  free  and  full  consent.  But  if  you  care  for  me 
at  all  do  not  let  me  lose  my  life  in  a  misapprehension,  for  I 
love  you  better  than  the  whole  world;  and  though  I  will 
die  for  you  blithely,  it  would  be  like  all  the  joys  of  Para- 
dise to  live  on  and  spend  my  life  in  your  service."  10 

As  he  stopped  speaking,  a  bell  began  to  ring  loudly  in 
the  interior  of  the  house;  and  a  clatter  of  armor  in  the  cor- 
ridor showed  that  the  retainers  were  returning  to  their 
post,  and  the  two  hours  were  at  an  end. 

"After  all  that  you  have  heard?  "  she  whispered,  leaning  15 
toward  him  with  her  lips  and  eyes. 

"I  have  heard  nothing,"  he  replied. 

"The  captain's  name  was  Florimond  de  Champdivers," 
she  said  in  his  ear. 

"I  did  not  hear  it,"  he  answered,  taking  her  supple  body  20 
in  his  arms,  and  covered  her  wet  face  with  kisses. 

A  melodious  chirping  was  audible  behind,  followed  by  a 
beautiful  chuckle,  and  the  voice  of  Messire  de  Maletroit 
wished  his  new  nephew  a  good-morning. 


THE  COURTING  OF  T'NOWHEAD'S  BELL 

By  SIR  JAMES  MATTHEW  BARRIE 

FOR  two  years  it  had  been  notorious  in  the  square  that 
Sam'l  Dickie  was  thinking  of  courting  T'nowhead's  Bell, 
and  that  if  little  Sanders  Elshioner  (which  is  the  Thrums 
pronunciation  of  Alexander  Alexander)  went  in  for  her,  he 

5  might  prove  a  formidable  rival.  Sam'l  was  a  weaver  in 
the  Tenements,  and  Sanders  a  coal-carter,  whose  trade- 
mark was  a  bell  on  his  horse's  neck 'that  told  when  coal 
was  coming.  Being  something  of  a  public  man,  Sanders 
had  not,  .perhaps,  so  high  a  social  position  as  Sam'l,  but 

10  he  had  succeeded  his  father  on  the  coal-cart,  while  the 
weaver  had  already  tried  several  trades.  It  had  always 
been  against  Sam'l,  too,  that  once  when  the  kirk  was 
vacant  he  had  advised  the  selection  of  the  third  minister 
who  preached  for  it  on  the  ground  that  it  came  expensive 

15  to  pay  a  large  number  of  candidates.  The  scandal  of  the 
thing  was  hushed  up,  out  of  respect  for  his  father,  who  was 
a  God-fearing  man,  but  Sam'l  was  known  by  it  in  Lang 
Tammas'  circle.  The  coal-carter  was  called  Little  Sanders 
to  distinguish  him  from  his  father,  who  was  not  much  more 

20  than  half  his  size.  He  had  grown  up  with  the  name,  and 
its  inapplicability  now  came  home  to  nobody.  Sam'l's 
mother  had  been  more  far-seeing  than  Sanders'.  Her  man 
had  been  called  Sammy  all  his  life  because  it  was  the  name 
he  got  as  a  boy,  so  when  their  eldest  son  was  born  she 

25  spoke  of  him  as  Sam'l  while  still  in  Ihe  cradle.  The 
•  neighbors  imitated  her,  and  thus  the  young  man  had  a 
better  start  in  life  than  had  been  granted  to  Sammy,  his 
fathe,  ( 


The  Courting  of  T'nowhead's  Bell         243 

It  was  Saturday  evening — the  night  in  the  week  when 
Auld  Licht  young  men  fell  in  love.  Sam'l  Dickie,  wearing 
a  blue  glengarry  bonnet  with  a  red  ball  on  the  top,  came 
to  the  door  of  a  one-story  house  in  the  Tenements,  and 
stood  there  wriggling,  for  he  was  in  a  suit  of  tweed  for  the  5 
first  time  that  week,  and  did  not  feel  at  one  with  them. 
When  his  feeling  of  being  a  stranger  to  himself  wore  off,  he 
looked  up  and  down  the  road,  which  straggles  between 
houses  and  gardens,  and  then,  picking  his  way  over  the 
puddles,  crossed  to  his  father's  hen-house  and  sat  down  10 
oifftTj  He  was  now  on  his  way  to  the  square. 

Eppie  Fargus  was  sitting  on  an  adjoining  dyke  knitting 
stockings,  and  Sam'l  looked  at  her  for  a  time. 

"Is't  yersel,  Eppie?"  he  said  at  last. 

"  It's  a'  that,"  said  Eppie.  15 

"Hoo's  1  a>  wi'  ye?"  asked  Sam'l. 

"  We're  juist  aff  an'  on,"  2  replied  Eppie,  cautiously. 

There  was  not  much  more  to  say,  but  as  Sam'l  sidled  off 
the  hen-house,   he  murmured  politely,    "Ay,   ay."     In 
another  minute  he  would  have  been  fairly  started,  but  20 
Eppie  resumed  the  conversation. 

"Sam'l,"  she  said,  with  a  twinkle  in  her  eye,  "ye  can 
tell  Lisbeth  Fargus  I'll  likely  be  drappin'  in  on  her  aboot 
Mununday  or  Teisday." 

Lisbeth   was   sister   to   Eppie,   and  wife   cf   Tammas  25 
McQuhatty,  better  known  as  T'nowhead,  which  was  the 
name  of  his  farm.    She  was  thus  Bell's  mistress. 

Sam'l  leaned  against  the  hen-house  as  if  all  his  desire 
to  depart  had  gone. 

"Hoo  d'ye  kin  3  I'll  be  at  the  T'nowhead  the  nicht?"  4  30 
he  asked,  grinnipg  in  anticipation. 

"Ou,  I'se  warrant  ye'll  be  after  Bell,"  said  Eppie.          s  w  ^ 

1  How  is.  2  Ajf  an'  on  is  "so  so" — indifferently  well. 

3  Know.  4  To-night. 


244  Sir  James  Matthew  Barrie 

"Am  no  sae  sure  o'  that,"  said  Sam'l,  trying  to  leer. 
He  was  enjoying  himself  now. 

"Am  no  sure  o'  that,"  he  repeated,  for  Eppie  seemed 
lost  in  stitches. 
5      "Sam'l!" 
"Ay." 

f"Ye'll  be  speirin' 1  her  sune  noo,  I  dinna  doot?  " 
TEis  took  Sam'l,  who  had  only  been  courting  Bell  for  a 
year  or  two,  a  little  aback. 
10      "Hoo  d'ye  mean,  Eppie?"  he  asked. 
"Maybe  ye'll  do't  the  nicht." 
"Na,  there's  nae  hurry,"  said  Sam'l. 
"  Weel,  we're  a'  coontin'  on't,  Sam'l." 
"Gaewawi'ye."2 
15      "What  for  no?" 

"  Gae  wa  wi'  ye,"  said  Sam'l  again. 
"Bell's  gei  an'  fond 3  o'  ye,  Sam'l." 
"Ay,"  said  Sam'l. 

"But  am  dootin'  ye're  a  fell 4  billy  5  wi'  the  lasses." 
20      "Ay,  oh,  I  d'na  kin,  moderate,  moderate,"  said  Sam'l 
in  high  delight.  "7 

"I  saw  ye,jr"said  Eppie,  speaking  with  a  wire  in  her 
mouth,  "gae'in  on  terr'ble  wi'  Mysy  Haggart  at  the  pump 
last  Saturday." 
25      "We  was  juist  amoosin'  oorsels,"  said  Sam'l. 

"It'll  be  nae  amoosement  to  Mysy,"  said  Eppie,  "gin 6 
ye  brak  her  heart." 

"Losh,7    Eppie,"    said    Sam'l,    "I    didna    think    o' 
that." 

30      "Ye  maun  8  kin  weel,  Sam'l,  'at  there's  mony  a  lass  wid 
jump  at  ye." 

1  Asking.  «  "  Go  on  with  you." 

3  Gei  an'  fond  is  "mighty  fond."  4  Terrible.        5  Fellow. 

6  H.  7  "Lordy  "  or  "Laws."  8  Mast 


The  Courting  of  T'riowhead's  Bell         245 

"Ou,  weel,"  said  Sam'l,  implying  that  a  man  must  take 
these  things  as  they  come. 

"For  ye're  a  dainty  chield  to  look  at,  Sam'l." 

"Do  ye  think  so,  Eppie?    Ay,  ay;  oh,  I  d'na  kin  am  1 
ony  thing  by  the  ordinar."  : 

"Ye  mayna  be,"  said  Eppie,  "but  lasses  doesna  do 
be  ower  partikler." 

Sam'l  resented  this,  and  prepared  to  depart  again. 

"Ye'll  no  tell  Bell  that?"  he  asked  anxiously. 

"Tell  her  what?"  10 

"Aboot  me  an'  Mysy." 

"We'll  see  hoo  ye  behave  yersel,  Sam'l." 

"No  'at  I  care,  Eppie;  ye  can  tell  her  gin  ye  like.    I 
widna  think  twice  o'  tellin'  her  mysel." 

"The  Lord  forgie  ye  for  leein',3  Sam'l,"  said  Eppie,  as  he  15 
disappeared  down  Tamm£  Tosh's  close.    Here  he  came 
upon  Renders  Webster. 

"Ye're  late,  Sam'l,"  said  Renders. 

"What  for?" 

"Ou,  I  was  thinkin'  ye  wid  be  gaen  the  length  o'  T'now-  20 
head  the  nicht,  an'  I  saw  Sanders  Elshioner  makkin's 
wy  4  there  an  oor  syne."  5 

"Did   ye?"    cried    Sam'l,    adding    craftily,    "but   it's 
naething  to  me." 

"Tod,6  lad,"  said  Renders,  "gin  ye  dinna  buckle  to,  25 
Sanders'll  be  carryin'  her  off." 

Sam'l  flung  back  his  head  and  passed  on. 

"Sam'l!"  cried  Renders  after  him. 

"Ay,"  said  Sam'l,  wheeling  round. 

"  Gie  Bell  a  kiss  frae  me."  30 

The  full  force  of  this  joke  struck  neither  all  at  once. 
Sam'l  began  to  smile  at  it  as  he  turned  down  the  school- 

ll  am.  *By  the  ordinar,  extraordinary.  3  Lying. 

4  Way.  6  Oor  syne,  hour  ago.  6 "  Gosh," 


246  Sir  James  Matthew  Barrie 

wynd,1  and  it  came  upon  Henders  while  he  was  in  his 
garden  feeding  his  ferret.  Then  he  slapped  his  legs  glee- 
fully, and  explained  the  conceit  to  WilPum  Byars,  who 
went  into  the  house  and  thought  it  over. 
5  There  were  twelve  or  twenty  little  groups  of  men  in  the 
square,  which  was  lit  by  a  flare  of  oil  suspended  over  a 
cadger's2  cart.  Now  and  again  a  staid  young  woman 
passed  through  the  square  with  a  basket  on  her  arm, 
and  if  she  had  lingered  long  enough  to  give  them  time, 
10  some  of  the  idlers  would  have  addressed  her.  As  it 
was,  they  gazed  after  her,  and  then  grinned  to  each 
other. 

"Ay,  Sam'l,"  said  two  or  three  young  men,  as  Sam'l 
joined  them  beneath  the  town-clock. 
15      "Ay,  Davit,"  replied  Sam'l. 

This  group  was  composed  of*some  of  the  sharpest  wits 
in  Thrums,  and  it  was  not  to  be  expected  that  they  would 
let  this  opportunity  pass.  Perhaps  when  Sam'l  joined  them 
he  knew  what  was  in  store  for  him. 

20      "Was  ye  lookin'  for  T'nowhead's  Bell,  Sam'l?"  asked 
one. 

"Or  mebbe  ye  was  wantin'  the  minister?"  suggested 
another,  the  same  who  had  walked  out  twice  with  Chirsty 
Duff  and  not  married  her  after  all. 

25      Sam'l  could  not  think  of  a  good  reply  at  the  moment, 
so  he  laughed  good-naturedly. 

"Ondootedly  she's-  a  snod3  bit  crittur,"  said  Davit, 
archly. 

"An'   michty   clever   wi'   her   fingers,"   added   Jamie 
30  Deuchars. 

"Man,  I've  thocht  o'  makkin'  up  to  Bell  mysel,"  said 
Pete  Ogle.  "Wid  there  be  ony  chance,  think  ye, 
Sam'l?" 

1  Lane.  2  Huckster.  3  Trim,  tidy. 


The  Courting  of  T'nowhead's  Bell         247 

"I'm  thinkin'  she  widna  hae  ye  for  her  first,  Pete," 
replied  Sam'l,  in  one  of  those  happy  flashes  that  come  to 
some  men,  "but  there's  nae  savin'  but  what  she  micht 
tak  ye  to  finish  up  wi'." 

The  unexpectedness  of  this  sally  startled  every  one.    5 
Though  Sam'l  did  not  set  up  for  a  wit,  however,  like  Davit, 
it  was  notorious  that  he  could  say  a  cutting  thing  once  in  a 
way. 

"Did  ye  ever  see  Bell  reddin' 1  up?"  asked  Pete,  re- 
covering from  his  overthrow.    He  was  a  man  who  bore  no  10 
malice. 

"It's  a  sicht,"  2  said  Sam'l,  solemnly. 

"Hoo  will  that  be?"  asked  Jamie  Deuchars. 

"It's  weel  worth  yer  while,"  said  Pete,  "to  ging  atower 3 
to  the  T'nowhead  an'  see.    Ye'll  mind  the  closed-in  beds  15 
i'  the  kitchen?    Ay,  weel,  they're  a  fell  spoilt  crew,  T'now- 
head's  litlins,  an'  no  that  aisy  to  manage.    Th'  ither  lasses 
Lisbeth's  hae'n  had  a  michty  trouble  wi'  them.    When 
they  war  i'  the  middle  o'  their  reddin'  up  the  bairns  wid 
come  tumlin'  about  the  floor,  but,  sal,4  I  assure  ye,  Bell  20 
didna  fash 5  lang  wi'  them.    Did  she,  Sam'l?  " 

"She  did  not,"  said  Sam'l,  dropping  into  a  fine  mode  of 
speech  to  add  emphasis  to  his  remark. 

"I'll  tell  ye  what  she  did,"  said  Pete  to  the  others. 
"  She  juist  lifted  up  the  litlins,  twa  at  a  time,  an'  flung  them  25 
into  the  coffin-beds.6    Syne  she  snibbit 7  the  doors  on  them 
an'  keepit  them  there  till  the  floor  was  dry." 

"Ay,  man,  did  she  so?"  said  Davit,  admiringly. 

"I've  seen  her  do't  mysel,"  said  Sam'l. 

"There's  no  a  lassie  maks  better  bannocks 8  this  side  o'  30 
Fetter  Lums,"  continued  Pete. 

1  Tidying.  2  Sight.  3  Over.  4  An  expletive. 

5  Bother.  6  The  "closed-in  beds"  mentioned  above. 

7  Fastened.  8  A  barley  or  oatmeal  cake  baked  on  a  griddle. 


248  Sir  James  Matthew  Barrie 

"Her  mither  tocht  her  that,"  said  Sam'l;  "she  was  a 
gran'  han'  at  the  bakin,'  Kitty  Ogilvy." 

"  I've  heard  say,"  remarked  Jamie,  putting  it  this  way  so 
as  not  to  tie  himself  down  to  anything,  "  'at  Bell's  scones  1 
5  is  equal  to  Mag  Lunan's." 

"So  they  are,"  said  Sam'l,  almost  fiercely. 
"I  kin    she's   a   neat   han'   at  singein'  a  hen,"   said 
Pete. 

-'"An'  wi't  a',"  said  Davit,  "she's  a  snod,  canty  bit 
10  stocky 2  in  her  Sabbath  claes."  3 

"If  onything,  thick  in  the  waist,"  suggested  Jamie. 
"I  dinna  see  that,"  said  Sam'l. 

"I  d'na  care  for  her  hair  either,"  continued  Jamie,  who 
was  very  nice  in  his  tastes;  "something  mair  yallowchy  4 
15  wid  be  an  improvement." 

"A'body5  kins,"  growled  Sam'l,  "'at  black  hair's  the 
bonniest," 

The  others  chuckled. 
"Puir  Sam'l!  "Pete  said. 

20  Sam'l  not  being  certain  whether  this  should  be  received 
with  a  smile  or  a  frown,  opened  his  mouth  wide  as  a  kind 
of  compromise.  This  was  position  one  with  him  for  think- 
ing things  over. 

£^Few  Auld  Lichts,  as  I  have  said,  went  the  length  of 

25  choosing  a  helpmate  for  themselves.    One  day  a  young 

man's  friends  would  see  him  mending  the  washing- tub  of  a 

maiden's  mother.     They  kept  the  joke  until  Saturday 

night,  and  then  he  learned  from  them  what  he  had  been 

after.    It  dazed  him  for  a  time,  but  in  a  year  or  so  he  grew 

30  accustomed  to  the  idea,  and  they  were  then  married.    With 

a  little  help  he  fell  in  love  just  like  other  people. ") 

1 A  cake  thinner  than  a  bannock. 

2  Canty  bit  stocky,  cheery  little  body.  3  Clothes. 

4  Yellowish.  5  Everybody. 


The  Courting  of  T'nowhead's  Bell         249 

Sam'l  was  going  the  way  of  the  others,  but  he  found  it 
difficult  to  come  to  the  point.     He  only  went  courting 
once  a  week,  and  he  could  never  take  up  the  running  at  the 
place  where  he  left  off  the  Saturday  before.    Thus  he  had 
not,  so  far,  made  great  headway.    His  method  of  making    5 
up  to  Bell  had  been  to  drop  in  at  T'nowhead  on  Saturday 
nights  and  talk  with  the  farmer  about  the  rinderpest.1 
VJhe  farm  kitchen  was  Bell's  testimonial.     Its  chairs, 
tables,  and  stools  were  scoured  by  her  to  the  whiteness  of 
Rob  Angus'  saw-mill  boards,  and  the  muslin  blind  on  the  10 
window  was  starched  like  a  child's  pinafore.     Bell  was 
brave,  too,  as  well  as  energetic?  Once  Thrums  had  been 
overrun  with  thieves.    It  is  now  thought  that  there  may 
have  been  only  one,  but  he  had  the  wicked  cleverness  of  a 
gang.  .  Such  was  his  repute  that  there  were  weavers  who  15 
spoke  of  locking  their  doors  when  they  went  from  home. 
He  was  not  very  skilful,  however,  being  generally  caught, 
and  when  they  said  they  knew  he  was  a  robber,  he  gave 
them  their  things  back  and  went  away.    If  they  had  given 
him  time  there  is  no  doubt  that  he  would  have  gone  off  20 
with  his  plunder.    One  night  he  went  to  T'nowhead,  and 
Bell,  who  slept  in  the  kitchen,  was  awakened  by  the  noise. 
She  knew  who  it  would  be,  so  she  rose  and  dressed  herself, 
and  went  to  look  for  him  with  a  candle.    The  thief  had  not 
known  what  to  do  when  he  got  in,  and  as  it  was  very  25 
lonely  he  was  glad  to  see  Bell.     She  told  him  he  ought  to 
be  ashamed  of  himself,  and  would  not  let  him  out  by  the 
door  until  he  had  taken  off  his  boots  so  as  not  to  soil  the 


On  thisoaturday  evening  Sam'l  stood  his  ground  in  the  30 
square,  until  by  and  by  he  found  himself  alone.    There 
were  other  groups  there  still,  but  his  circle  had  melted 
away.    They  went  separately,  and  no  one  said  good-night. 
1  Cattle  plague. 


250  Sir  James  Matthew  Barrie 

Each  took  himself  off  slowly,  backing  out  of  the  group  until 
he  was  fairly  started. 

3$am'l  looked  about  him,  and  then,  seeing  that  the  others 
had  gone,  walked  round  the  town-house  into  the  darkness 
5  of  the  brae  Mthat  leads  down  and  then  uplto  the  farm  of 
T'nowhead. 

•To  get  into  the  good  graces  of  Lisbeth  Fargus  you  had 
to  know  her  ways  and  humor  them.  Sam'l,  who  was  a 
student  of  women,  knew  this,  and  so,  instead  of  pushing 
10  the  door  open  and  walking  in,  he  went  through  the  rather 
ridiculous  ceremony  of  knocking.  Sanders  Elshioner  was 
also  aware  of  this  weakness  of  Lisbeth's,  but  though  he 
often  made  up  his  mind  to  knock,  the  absurdity  of  the 
thing  prevented  his  doing  so  when  he  reached  the  door. 
15  T'nowhead  himself  had  never  got  used  to  his  wife's  refined 
notions,  and  when  any  one  knocked  he  always  started  to 
his  feet,  thinking  there  must  be  something  wrongT] 

Lisbeth  came  to  the  door,  her  expansive  figure  blocking 
the  way  in. 
20      "Sam'l,"  she  said. 

"Lisbeth,"  said  Sam'l. 

He  shook  hands  with  the  farmer's  wife,  knowing  that 
she  liked  it,  but  only  said,  "Ay,  Bell,"  to  his  sweetheart, 
"Ay,    T'nowhead,"    to    McQuhatty,    and    "It's   yersel, 
25  Sanders,"  to  his  rival. 

They  were  all  sitting  round  the  fire;  T'nowhead,  with 
his  feet  on  the  ribs,  wondering  why  he  felt  so  warm,  and 
Bell  darned  a  stocking,  while  Lisbeth  kept  an  eye  on  a 
goblet 2  full  of  potatoes. 

30      "  Sit  into  3  the  fire,  Sam'l,"  said  the  farmer,  not,  how- 
ever, making  way  for  him. 

"Na,  na,"  said  Sam'l;  "I'm  to  bide  nae  time."    Then 
he  sat  into  the  fire.    His  face  was  turned  away  from  Bell, 
1  Slope  of  the  hill.  2  A  deep  sauce-pan.  3  Up  to. 


The  Courting  of  T'nowhead's  Bell         251 

and  when  she  spoke  he  answered  her  without  looking 
round.  Sam'l  felt  a  little  anxious.  Sanders  Elshioner, 
who  had  one  leg  shorter  than  the  other,  but  looked  well 
when  sitting,  seemed  suspiciously  at  home.  He  asked 
Bell  questions  out  of  his  own  head,  which  was  beyond  5 
Sam'l,  and  once  he  said  something  to  her  in  such  a  low 
voice  that  the  others  could  not  catch  it.  T'nowhead  asked 
curiously  what  it  was,  and  Sanders  explained  that  he  had 
only  said,  "Ay,  Bell,  the  morn's  the  Sabbath."  There 
was  nothing  startling  in  this,  but  Sam'l  did  not  like  it.  He  10 
began  to  wonder  if  he  were  too  late,  and  had  he  seen  his 
opportunity  would  have  told  Bell  of  a  nasty  rumor  that 
Sanders  intended  to  go  over  to  the  Free  Church  if  they 
would  make  him  kirk-officer. 

l_  Sam'l  had  the  good- will  of  T'nowhead's  wife,  who  liked  15 
a  polite  man.     Sanders  did  his  best,  but  from  want  of 
practice   he   constantly   made   mistakes.     To-night,   for 
instance,  he  wore  his  hat  in  the  house  because  he  did  not 
like  to  put  up  his  hand  and  take  it  off.    T'nowhead  had 
not  taken  his  off  either,  but  that  was  because  he  meant  20 
to  go  out  by  and  by  and  lock  the  byre  1  doqrj  It  was  im- 
possible to  say  which  of  her  lovers  Bell  preferred.    The 
proper  course  with  an  Auld  Licht  lassie  was  to  prefer  the 
man  who  proposed  to  her. 

"Ye'll  bide  a  wee,  an'  hae  something  to  eat?"  Lisbeth  25 
asked  Sam'l,  with  her  eyes  on  the  goblet. 

"No,  I  thank  ye,"  said  Sam'l,  with  true  gentility. 

"Ye'll  better." 

"Idinnathinkit." 

"Hoots  aye; 2  what's  to  hender  ye? "  30 

"Weel,  since  ye're  sae  pressin',  I'll  bide." 

No  one  asked  Sanders  to  stay.    Bell  could  not,  for  she 
was  but  the  servant,,  and  T'nowhead  knew  that  the  kick 
1  Barn  or  cow-shed.  .     2  Hoots  aye,  "fudge." 


252  Sir  James  Matthew  Barrie 

his  wife  had  given  him  meant  that  he  was  not  to  do  so 
either.  Sanders  whistled  to  show  that  he  was  not  un- 
comfortable. 

"Ay,  then,  I'll  be  stappin'  ower  the  brae,"  he  said  at  last. 

5  He  did  not  go,  however.  L  There  was  sufficient  pride 
in  him  to  get  him  off  his  chair,  but  only  slowly,  for  he  had 
to  get  accustomed  to  the  notion  of  going.  At  intervals  of 
two  or  three  minutes  he  remarked  that  he  must  now  be 
going.  In  the  same  circumstances  Sam'l  would  have 

10  acted  similarly.  For  a  Thrums  man,  it  is  one  of  the  hard- 
est things  in  life  to  get  away  from  anywhere.J 

At  last  Lisbeth  saw  that  something  must  be  done.  The 
potatoes  were  burning,  and  T'nowhead  had  an  invitation 
on  his  tongue. 

15  "Yes,  I'll  hae  to  be  movin',"  said  Sanders,  hopelessly, 
for  the  fifth  time. 

"Guid  nicht  to  ye,  then,  Sanders,"  said  Lisbeth.  "Gie 
the  door  a  fling- to,  ahent 1  ye." 

Sanders,  with  a  mighty  effort,  pulled  himself  together. 

20  He  looked  boldly  at  Bell,  and  then  took  off  his  hat  care- 
fully. Sam'l  saw  with  misgivings  that  there  was  something 
in  it  which  was  not  a  handkerchief.  It  was  a  paper  bag 
glittering  with  gold  braid,  and  contained  such  an  assort- 
ment of  sweets  as  lads  bought  for  their  lasses  on  the  Muckte 

25  Friday. 

"Hae,  Bell,"  said  Sanders,  handing  the  bag  to  Bell  in 
an  off-hand  way  as  if  it  were  but  a  trifle.  Nevertheless  he 
was  a  little  excited,  for  he  went  off  without  saying  good- 
night. 

30      No  one  spoke.     Bell's  face  was  crimson.    T'nowhead 
fidgeted  on  his  chair,  and  Lisbeth  looked  at  Sam'l.    The 
weaver  was  strangely  calm  and  collected,  though  he  would 
have  liked  to  know  whether  this  was  a  proposal. 
1  Behind. 


The  Courting  of  T'nowhead's  Bell         253 

"Sit  in  by  to  the  table,  Sam'l,"  said  Lisbeth,  trying  to 
look  as  if  things  were  as  they  had  been  before. 

She  put  a  saucerful  of  butter,  salt,  and  pepper  near  the 
fire  to  melt,  for  melted  butter  is  the  shoeing-horn  that  helps 
over  a  meal  of  potatoes.    Sam'l,  however,  saw  what  the    5 
hour  required,  and  jumping  up,  he  seized  his  bonnet. 

"King  the  tatties  l  higher  up  the  joist,  Lisbeth,"  he  said 
with  dignity;  "I'se  be  back  in  ten  meenits." 

He  hurried  out  of  the  house,  leaving  the  others  looking 
at  each  other.  10 

"What  do  ye  think?  "  asked  Lisbeth. 

"I  d'na  kin,"  faltered  Bell. 

"Thae  tatties  is  lang  o'  comin'  to  the  boil,"  said  T'now- 
head. 

In  some  circles  a  lover  who  behaved  like  Sam'l  would  15 
have  been  suspected  of  intent  upon  his  rival's  life,  but 
neither  Bell  nor  Lisbeth  did  the  weaver  that  injustice. 
In  a  case  of  this  kind  it  does  not  much  matter  what  T 'now- 
head  thought. 

The  ten  minutes  had  barely  passed  when  Sam'l  was  20 
back  in  the  farm  kitchen.    He  was  too  flurried  to  knock 
this  time,   and,   indeed,   Lisbeth  did  not   expect  it  of 
him. 

"Bell,  hae!"  he  cried,  handing  his  sweetheart  a  tinsel 
bag  twice  the  size  of  Sanders'  gift.  25 

"Losh  preserve's!"  exclaimed  Lisbeth;  "I'se  warrant 
there's  a  shillin's  worth." 

"There's    a'    that,    Lisbeth— an'    mair,"    said    Sam'l 
firmly. 

"I  thank  ye,  Sam'l,"  said  Bell,  feeling  an  unwonted  30 
elation  as  she  gazed  at  the  two  paper  bags  in  her  lap. 

"Ye're  ower  extra vegint,  Sam'l,"  Lisbeth  said. 

"Not  at  all,"  said  Sam'l;  "not  at  all.     But  I  widna 
1  Potatoes. 


254  Sir  James  Matthew  Barrie 

advise  ye  to  eat  thae  ither  anes,  Bell — they're  second 
quality."  - 

Bell  drew  back  a  step  from  Sam'l. 

"How  do  ye  kin?"  asked  the  farmer  shortly,  for  he 

5  liked  Sanders. . 

'   "Ispeired  i'  the  shop,"  said  Sam'l. 
'  The  goblet  was  placed  on  a  broken  plate  on  the  table 
with  the  saucer  beside  it,  and  Sam'l,  like  the  others, 
helped  himself.    What  he  did  was  to  take  potatoes  from 

10  the  pot  with  his  fingers,  peel  off  their  coats,  and  then  dip 
them  into  the  butter.  Lisbeth  would  have  liked  to  provide 
knives  and  forks,  but  she  knew  that  beyond  a  certain  point 
T'nowhead  was  master  in  his  own  house.  As  for  Sam'l,  he 
felt  victory  in  his  hands,  and  began  to  think  that  he  had 

15  gone  too  far^-) 

In  the  mean  time  Sanders,  little  witting  that  Sam'l  had 
trumped  his  trick,  was  sauntering  along  the  kirk-wynd 
with  his  hat  on  the  side  ofhjs  head.  Fortunately  he  did 
not  meet  the  minister,  1  ^^ 

20  >^The  courting  of  T'nowhead's  Bell  reached  its  crisis  one 
Sabbath  about  a  month  after  the  events  above  recorded. 
The  minister  was  in  great  force  that  day,  but  it  is  no  part 
of  mine  to  tell  how  he  bore  himself.  I  was  there,  and 
am  not  likely  to  forget  the  scene.  It  was  a  fateful  Sabbath 

25  for  T'nowhead's  Bell  and  her  swains,  and  destined  to  be 
remembered  for  the  painful  scandal  which  they  perpetrated 
in  their  passion. 

Bell  was  not  in  the  kirk.  (.There  being  ah  infant  of  six 
months  in  the  house  it  was  a  question  of  either  Lisbeth 

30  or  the  lassie's  staying  at  home  with  him,  and  though  Lis- 
beth was  unselfish  in  a  general  way,  she  could  not  resist 
the  delight  of  going  to  church.  She  had  nine  children 
besides  the  baby,  and  being  but  a  woman,  it  was  the  pride 
of  her  life  to  march  them  into  the  T'nowhead  pew,  so  well 


The  Courting  of  T'nowhead's  Bell         255 

watched  that  they  dared  not  misbehave,  and  so  tightly 
packed  that  they  could  not  fall.    The  congregation  looked     - 
at  that  pew,   the  mothers  enviously,   when   they  sang 
the  lines —  .    * 

"Jerusalem  like  a  city  is  5 

Compactly  built  together." 

The  first  half  of  the  service  had  been  gone  through  on 
this  particular  Sunday  without  anything  remarkable 
happening.  It  was  at  the  end  of  the  psalm  which  preceded 
the  sermon  that  Sanders  Elshioner,  who  sat  near  the  door,  10 
lowered  his  head  until  it  was  no  higher  than  the  pews,  and 
in  that  attitude,  looking  almost  like  a  four-footed  animal, 
slipped  out  of  the  church.  In  their  eagerness  to  be  at  the 
sermon  many  of  the  congregation  did  not  notice  him,  and 
those  who  did  put  the  matter  by  in  their  minds  for  future  15 
investigation.  Sam'l,  however,  could  not  take  it  so  coolly. 
From  his  seat  in  the  gallery  he  saw  Sanders  disappear,  and 
his  mind  misgave  him.  With  the  true  lover's  instinct  he 
understood  it  all.  Sanders  had  been  struck  by  the  fine 
turn-out  in  the  T'nowhead  pew.  Bell  was  alone  at  the  20 
farm.  What  an  opportunity  to  work  one's  way  up  to  a 
proposal!  T'nowhead  was  so  overrun  with  children  that 
such  a  chance  seldom  occurred,  except  on  a  Sabbath. 
Sanders,  doubtless,  was  off  to  propose,  and  he,  Sam'l,  was 
left  behind.  25 

The  suspense  was  terrible.  i.Sam'l  and  Sanders  had  both 
known  all  along  that  Bell  would  take  the  first  of  the  two 
who  asked  her.  Even  those  who  thought  her  proud  ad- 
mitted that  she  was  modest.  Bitterly  the  weaver  repented 
having  waited  so  long.  Now  it  was  too  late.  In  ten  30 
minutes  Sanders  would  be  at  T'nowhead;  in  an  hour  all 
would  be  over.  Sam'l  rose  to  his  feet  in  a  daze.  His 
mother  pulled  him  down  by  the  coat-tail,  and  his  father 
shook  him,  thinking  he  was  walking  in  his  sleep.  He 


256  Sir  James  Matthew  Barrie 

tottered  past  them,  however,  hurried  up  the  aisle,  which 
was  so  narrow  that  Dan'l  Ross  could  only  reach  his  seat 
by  walking  sideways,  and  was  gone  before  the  minister 
could  do  more  than  stop  in  the  middle  of  a  whirl  and  gape 

5  in  horror  after  him. 

A  number  of  the  congregation  felt  that  day  the  advan- 
tage of  sitting  in  the  laft.1  What  was  a  mystery  to  those 
downstairs  was  revealed  to  them.  From  the  gallery  win- 
dows they  had  a  fine  open  view  to  the  south ;  and  as  Sam'l 

10  took  the  common,  which  was  a  short  cut  though  a  steep 
ascent,  to  T'nowhead,  he  was  never  out  of  their  line  of 
vision.  Sanders  was  not  to  be  seen,  but  they  guessed 
rightly  the  reason  why.  Thinking  he  had  ample  time, 
he  had  gone  round  by  the  main  road  to  save  his  boots — • 

15  perhaps  a  little  scared  by  what  was  coming.  SamTs 
design  was  to  forestall  him  by  taking  the  shorter  path  over 
the  burn 2  and  up  the  commonty.3 

It  was  a  race  for  a  wife,  and  several  onlookers  in  the 
gallery  braved  the  minister's  displeasure  to  see  who  won. 

20  Those  who  favored  Sam'l's  suit  exultingly  saw  him  leap 
the  stream,  while  the  friends  of  Sanders  fixed  their  eyes 
on  the  top  of  the  common  where  it  ran  into  the  road.  San- 
ders must  come  into  sight  there,  and  the  one  who  reached 
this  point  first  would  get  Bell. 

25  As  Auld  Lichts  do  not  walk  abroad  on  the  Sabbath, 
Sanders  would  probably  not  be  delayed.  The  chances  were 
in  his  favor.  Had  it  been  any  other  day  in  the  week  Sam'l 
might  have  run.  So  some  of  the  congregation  in  the 
gallery  were  thinking,  when  suddenly  they  saw  him  bend 

30  low  and  then  take  to  his  heels.    He  had  caught  sight  of  < 

Sanders'  head  bobbing  over  the.  hedge  that  separated  the 

road  from  the  common,  and  feared  that  Sanders  might  1 

see  him.    The  congregation  who  could  crane  their  necks  \ 

1  Gallery.  2  Brook.  3  Common. 


The  Courting  of  T'nowhead's  Bell         257 

sufficiently  saw  a  black  object,  which  they  guessed  to  be 
the  carter's  hat,  crawling  along  the  hedge-top.  For  a 
moment  it  was  motionless,  and  then  it  shot  ahead.  The 
rivals  had  seen  each  other.  It  was  now  a  hot  race.  Sam'l, 
dissembling  no  longer,  clattered  up  the  common,  be-  5 
coming  smaller  and  smaller  to  the  on-lookers  as  he  neared 
the  top.  More  than  one  person  in  the  gallery  almost 
rose  to  their  feet  in  their  excitement.  Sam'l  had  it. 
No,  Sanders  was  in  front.  Then  the  two  figures  disap- 
peared from  view.  They  seemed  to  run  into  each  other  10 
at  the  top  of  the  brae,  and  no  one  could  say  who  was 
first.  The  congregation  looked  at  one  another.  Some 
of  them  perspired.  But  the  minister  held  on  his  course. 

Sam'l  had  just  been  in  time  to  cut  Sanders  out.    It  was 
the  weaver's  saving  that  Sanders  saw  this  when  his  rival  15 
turned  the  corner;  for  Sam'l  was  sadly  blown.     Sanders 
took  in  the  situation  and  gave  in  at  once.    The  last  hun- 
dred yards  of  the  distance  he  covered  at  his  leisure,  and 
when  he  arrived  at  his  destination  he  did  not  go  in.    It 
was  a  fine  afternoon  for  the  time  of  year,  and  he  went  20 
round  to  have  a  look  at  the  pig,  about  which  T'nowhead 
was  a  little  sinfully  puffed  up. 

"Ay,"  said  Sanders,  digging  his  fingers  critically  into 
the  grunting  animal;  "quite  so." 

'  "Grumph,"   said   the  pig,  getting  reluctantly  to  his  25 
feet. 

"Ou,  ay;  yes,"  said  Sanders,  thoughtfully. 

Then  he  sat  down  on  the  edge  of  the  sty,  and  looked 
long  and  silently  at  an  empty  bucket.    But  whether  his 
thoughts  were  of  T'nowhead's  Bell,  whom  he  had  lost  30 
forever,  or  of  the  food  the  farmer  fed  his  pig  on,  is  not 
known. 

"Lord  preserve's!    Are  ye  no  at  the  kirk?"  cried  Bell, 
nearly  dropping  the  baby  as  Sam'l  broke  into  the  room. 


258  Sir  James  Matthew  Barrie 

"Bell!"  cried  Sam'l. 

Then  T'nowhead's  Bell  knew  that  her  hour  had  come. 
"Sam'l,"  she  faltered. 

"Will  ye  hae's,  Bell?"  demanded  Sam'l,  glaring  at  her 
5  sheepishly. 

"Ay,"  answered  Bell. 
Sam'l  fell  into  a  chair. 

"Bring's  a  drink  o'  water,  Bell,"  he  said.     But  Bell 

thought  the  occasion  required  milk,  and  there  was  none  in 

10  the  kitchen.    She  went  out  to  the  byre,  still  with  the  baby 

in  her  arms,  and  saw  Sanders  Elshioner  sitting  gloomily  on 

the  pig-sty. 

"Weel,  Bell,"  said  Sanders. 

"I  thocht  ye'd  been  at  the  kirk,  Sanders,"  said  Bell. 
15      Then  there  was  a  silence  between  them. 

"Has  Sam'l  speired  ye,  Bell?"  asked  Sanders  stolidly. 
"Ay,"  said  Bell  again,  and  this  time  there  was  a  tear  in 
her  eye.    Sanders  was  little  better  than  an  "orra  man,"  i 
and  Sam'l  was  a  weaver,  and  yet —    But  it  was  too  late 
20  now.    Sanders  gave  the  pig  a  vicious  poke  with  a  stick, 
and  when  it  had  ceased  to  grunt,  Bell  was  back  in  the 
kitchen.    She  had  forgotten  about  the  milk,  however,  and 
Sam'l  only  got  water  after  all. 

In  after  days,  when  the  story  of  Bell's  wooing  was  told, 

25  there  were  some  who  held  that  the  circumstances  would 

have  almost  justified  the  lassie  in  giving  Sam'l  the  go-by. 

But  these  perhaps  forgot  that  her  other  lover  was  in  the 

same  predicament  as  the  accepted  one — that  of  the  two, 

indeed,  he  was  the  more  to  blame,  for  he  set  off  to  T'now- 

30  head  on  the  Sabbath  of  his  own  accord,  while  Sam'l  only 

ran  after  him.    And  then  there  is  no  one  to  say  for  certain 

whether  Bell  heard  of  her  suitors'   delinquencies  until 

Lisbeth's  return  from  the  kirk.    Sam'l  could  never  remem- 

1  Odd  job  man. 


The  Courting  of  T'nowhead's  Bell         259 

her  whether  he  told  her,  and  Bell  was  not  sure  whether,  if 
he  did,  she  took  it  in.  Sanders  was  greatly  in  demand  for 
weeks  after  to  tell  what  he  knew  of  the  affair,  but  though 
he  was  twice  asked  to  tea  to  the  manse  among  the  trees,  and 
subjected  thereafter  to  ministerial  cross-examinations,  5 
this  is  all  he  told.  He  remained  at  the  pig-sty  until  Sam'l 
left  the  farm,  when  he  joined  him  at  the  top  of  the  brae, 
and  they  went  home  together. 

"It's  yersel,  Sanders,"  said  Sam'l. 

"It  is  so,  Sam'l,"  said  Sanders.  10 

"Very  cauld,"  said  Sam'l. 

"Blawy,"  assented  Sanders. 

After  a  pause — 

"Sam'l,"  said  Sanders. 

"Ay."  .      is 

"I'm  hearin'  ye're  to  be  mairit." 

"Ay." 

"Weel,  Sam'l,  she's  a  snod  bit  lassie." 

"Thank  ye,"  said  Sam'l. 

"I  had  ance  a  kin'  o'  notion  o'  Bell  mysel,"  continued  20 
Sanders. 
•"Yehad?" 

"Yes,  Sam'l;  but  I  thocht  better  o't." 

"Hoo  d'ye  mean?"  asked  Sam'l,  a  little  anxiously. 

"Weel,  Sam'l,  mairitch  is  a  terrible  responsibeelity."       25 

"It  is  so,"  said  Sam'l,  wincing. 

"An'  no  the  thing  to  tak  up  withoot  conseederation." 

"But  it's  a  blessed  and  honorable  state,  Sanders;  ye've 
heard  the  minister  on't." 

"They  say,"  continued  the  relentless  Sanders,  "  'at  the  30 
minister  doesna  get  on  sair  J  wi'  the  wife  himsel." 

"So   they   do,"   cried   Sam'l,   with  a  sinking  at    the 
heart. 

1  Very  well. 


260  Sir  James  Matthew  Barrie 


"I've  been  telt,"  Sanders  went  on,  "  'at  gm  ye  can  get 
the  upper  han'  o'  the  wife  for  a  while  at  first,  there's  the 
mair  chance  o'  a  harmonious  exeestence." 

"Bell's   no   the   lassie,"   said   Sam'l   appealingly,   "to 
5  thwart  her  man." 
Sanders  smiled. 
"D'ye  think  she  is,  Sanders?" 

"Weel,  Sam'l,. I  d'na  want  to  fluster  ye,  but  she's  been 
ower  lang  wi'  Lisbeth  Fargus  no  to  hae  learnt  her  ways, 
10  An  a'body  kins  what  a  life  T'nowhead  has  wi'  her." 

"Guid  sake,  Sanders,  hoo  did  ye  no  speak  o'  this 
afore?" 

"I  thocht  ye  kent 1  o't,  Sam'l." 

They  had  now  reached  the  square,  and  the  U.  P.  kirk 
15  was  coming  out.    The  Auld  Licht  kirk  would  be  half  an 
hour  yet. 

"But,  Sanders,"  said  Sam'l,  brightening  up,  "ye  was  on 
yer  wy  to  spier  her  yersel." 

"I  was,  Sam'l,"  said  Sanders,  "and  I  canna  but  be 
20  thankfu'  ye  was  ower  quick  for's." 

"Gin't  hadna  been  you,"  said  Sam'l,  "I  wid  never  hae 
thocht  o't."  t 

"I'm  sayin'  naething  agin  Bell,"  pursued  the  other, 
"but,  man  Sam'l,  a  body  should  be  mair  deleeberate  in  a 
25  thing  o'  the  kind." 

"It  was  michty  hurried,"  said  Sam'l,  wofully. 
"It's  a  serious  thing  to  spier  a  lassie,"  said  Sanders. 
"It's  an  awfu'  thing,"  said  Sam'l. 
"But  we'll  hope  for  the  best,"  added  Sanders  in  a  hope, 
30  less  voice. 

They  were  close  to  the  Tenements  now,  and  Sam'l  looked 
as  if  he  were  on  his  way  to  be  hanged. 
"Sam'l!" 

1Knew. 


The  Courting  of  T'nowhead's  Bell         261 

"Ay,  Sanders." 

"Did  ye— did  ye  kiss  her,  Sam'l?" 

"Na." 

"Hoo?" 

"There's  was  varra  little  time,  Sanders."  5 

"Half  an  'oor,"  said  Sanders. 

"Was  there?     Man  Sanders,  to  tell  ye  the  truth,  I 
never  thocht  o't." 

Then  the  soul  of  Sanders  Elshioner  was  filled  with  con- 
tempt for  Sam'l  Dickie.><jt-  10 

The  scandal  blew  over.  At  first  it  was  expected  that 
the  minister  would  interfere  to  prevent  the  union,  but 
beyond  intimating  from  the  pulpit  that  the  souls  of 
Sabbath-breakers  were  beyond  praying  for,  and  then 
praying  for  Sam'l  and  Sanders  at  great  length,  with  a  15 
word  thrown  in  for  Bell,  he  let  things  take  their  course. 
Some  said  it  was  because  he  was  always  frightened  lest 
his  young  men  should  intermarry  with  other  denomina- 
tions, but  Sanders  explained  it  differently  to  Sam'l. 

"I  hav'na  a  word  to  say  agin  the  minister,"  he  said;  20 
"they're  gran'  prayers,  but,  Sam'l,  he's  a  mairit  man 
himsel." 

"He's  a'  the  better  for  that,  Sanders,  isna  he?" 

"Do  ye  no  see,"  asked  Sanders  compassionately,  "'at 
he's  tryin'  to  mak  the  best  o't?  "  25 

"Oh,  Sanders,  man!"  said  Sam'l. 

"Cheer  up,  Sam'l,"  said  Sanders,  "it'll  sune  be  ower." 

Their  having  been  rival  suitors  had  not  interfered  with 
their  friendship.  On  the  contrary,  while  they  had  hitherto 
been  mere  acquaintances,  they  became  inseparables  as  the  30 
wedding-day  drew  near.  It  was  noticed  that  they  had 
much  to  say  to  each  other,  and  that  when  they  could  not 
get  a  room  to  themselves  they  wandered  about  together 
in  the  churchyard.  When  Sam'l  had  anything  to  tell  BelJ 


262  Sir  James  Matthew  Barrie 

he  sent  Sanders  to  tell  it,  and  Sanders  did  as  he  was  bid. 

There  was  nothing  that  he  would  not  have  done  for  Sam'l. 

The  more  obliging  Sanders  was,  however,  the  sadder 

Sam'l  grew.     He  never  laughed  now  on  Saturdays,  and 

5  sometimes  his  loom  was  silent  half  the  day.     Sam'l  felt 

that  Sanders'  was  the  kindness  of  a  friend  for  a  dying  man. 

It  was  to  be  a  penny  wedding,  and  Lisbeth  Fargus  said 

it  was  delicacy  that  made  Sam'l  superintend  the  fitting-up 

of  the  barn  by  deputy.    Once  he  came  to  see  it  in  person, 

10  but  he  looked  so  ill  that  Sanders  had  to  see  him  home. 

This  was  on  the  Thursday  afternoon,  and  the  wedding 

was  fixed  for  Friday. 

"Sanders,  Sanders,"  said  Sam'l,  in  a  voice  strangely 
unlike  his  own,  "it'll  a'  be  ower  by  this  time  the  morn." 
15      "It  will,"  said  Sanders. 

"If  I  had  only  kent  her  langer,"  continued  Sam'l. 
"It  wid  hae  been  safer,"  said  Sanders. 
"Did  ye  see  the  yallow  floor  in  Bell's  bonnet?"  asked 
the  accepted  swain. 
20      "Ay,"  said  Sanders  reluctantly. 

"I'm  dootin' — I'm  sair  dootin'  she's  but  a  flichty,1  light- 
hearted  crittur  after  a'." 

"  I  had  ay  my  suspeecions  o't,"  said  Sanders. 
"Ye  hae  kent  her  langer  than  me,"  said  Sam'l. 
25      "Yes,"  said  Sanders,  "but  there's  nae  gettin'  at  the 
heart  o'  women.    Man,  Sam'l,  they're  desperate  cunnin'." 
"I'm  dootin't;  I'm  sair  dootin't." 
"It'll  be  a  warnin'  to  ye,  Sam'l,  no  to  be  in  sic  a  hurry 
i'  the  futur,"  said  Sanders. 
30      Sam'l  groaned. 

"Ye'll  be  gaein  up  to  the  manse  to  arrange  wi'  the 
minister  the  morn's  mornin',"  continued  Sanders,  in  a 
subdued  voice. 

1  Flighty. 


The  Courting  of  T'nowhead's  Bell         263 

Sam'l  looked  wistfully  at  his  friend. 

"I  canna  do't,  Sanders,"  he  said,  "I  canna  do't." 

"Ye  maun,"  said  Sanders. 

"It's  aisy  to  speak,"  retorted  Sam'l  bitterly. 

"We  have  a'  oor  troubles,  Sam'l,"  said  Sanders  sooth-    5 
Ingly,  "an5  every  man  maun  bear  his  ain  burdens.    Johnny 
Davie's  wife's  dead,  an'  he's  no  repinin'." 

"Ay,"  said  Sam'l,  "but  a  death's  no  a  mairitch.  We 
hae  haen  deaths  in  our  family  too." 

"It  may  a'  be  for  the  best,"  added  Sanders,  "an'  there  10 
wid  be  a  michty  talk  i'  the  hale  1  country-side  gin  ye  didna 
ging  to  the  minister  like  a  man." 

"I  maun  hae  langer  to  think  o't,"  said  Sam'l. 

"Bell's  mairitch  is  the  morn,"  said  Sanders  deci- 
sively. 15 

Sam'l  glanced  up  with  a  wild  look  in  his  eyes. 

"Sanders!"  he  cried. 

"Sam'l!"  ' 

"Ye  hae  been  a  guid  friend  to  me,  Sanders,  in  this  sair 
affliction."  20 

"Nothing  ava,"  2  said  Sanders;  "dount  mention'd." 

"But,  Sanders,  ye  canna  deny  but  what  your  rinnin 
oot  o'  the  kirk  that  awfu'  day  was  at  the  bottom  o'd  a'." 

"It  was  so,"  said  Sanders  bravely. 

"An'  ye  used  to  be  fond  o'  Bell,  Sanders."  25 

"Idinnadeny't." 

"Sanders,  laddie,"  said  Sam'l,  bending  forward  and 
speaking  in  a  wheedling  voice,  "I  aye  thocht  it  was  you 
she  likit." 

"I  had  some  sic  idea  mysel,"  said  Sanders.  30 

"Sanders,  I  canna  think  to  pairt  twa  fowk  sae  weel 
suited  to  ane  anither  as  you  an'  Bell." 

"Canna  ye,  Sam'l?" 

1  Whole.  2  At  all. 


264  Sir  James  Matthew  Barrie 

"  She  wid  make  ye  a  guid  wife,  Sanders.  I  hae  studied 
her  weel,  and  she's  a  thrifty,  douce,1  clever  lassie.  Sanders, 
there's  no  the  like  o'  her.  Mony  a  time,  Sanders,  I  hae 
said  to  mysel,  'There's  a  lass  ony  man  micht  be  prood  to 
5  tak.'  A'body  says  the  same,  Sanders.  There's  nae  risk 
ava,  man:  nane  to  speak  o'.  Tak  her,  laddie,  tak  her, 
Sanders;  it's  a  grand  chance,  Sanders.  She's  yours  for  the 
spierin.'  I'll  gie  her  up,  Sanders." 

"Will  ye,  though?"  said  Sanders. 
10      "What  d'ye  think? "  asked  Sam'l. 

"If  ye  wid  rayther,"  said  Sanders  politely. 
"There's  my  han'  on't,"  said  Sam'l.    "Bless  ye,  Sanders; 
ye've  been  a  true  frien'  to  me." 

Then  they  shook  hands  for  the  first  time  in  their  lives; 
15  and  soon  afterward  Sanders  struck  up  the  brae  to  T'now- 
head. 

Next  morning  Sanders  Elshioner,  who  had  been  very 
busy  the  night  before,  put  on  his  Sabbath  -clothes  and 
strolled  up  to  the  manse. 

20      "But— but  where  is  Sam'l?"  asked  the  minister;  "I 
must  see  himself." 

"It's  a  new  arrangement,"  said  Sanders. 
"What  do  you  mean,  Sanders?" 
"Bell's  to  marry  me,"  explained  Sanders. 
25      "But— but  what  does  Sam'l  say?" 
"He's  willin',"  said  Sanders. 
"And  Bell?" 

"She's  willin',  too.    She  prefers't." 
"It  is  unusual,"  said  the  minister. 
30      "It's  a'  richt,"  said  Sanders. 

"Well,  you  know  best,"  said  the  minister. 
"You  see  the  hoose  was  taen,  at  ony  rate,"  continued 
Sanders.    "An'  I'll  juist  ging  in  til't 2  instead  o'  Sam'l." 
1  Sober,  steady.  2  xo  j^ 


The  Courting  of  T'nowhead's  Bell         265 

"Quite  so." 

"An'  I  cudna  think  to  disappoint  the  lassie." 

"Your  sentiments  do  you  credit,  Sanders,"  said  the 
minister;  "but  I  hope  you  do  not  enter  upon  the  blessed 
state  of  matrimony  without  full  consideration  of  its  re-    5 
sponsibilities.    It  is  a  serious  business,  marriage." 

"It's  a'  that,"  said  Sanders,  "but  I'm  willin'  to  stan' 
the  risk." 

So,  as  soon  as  it  could  be  done,  Sanders  Elshioner  took 
to  wife  T'nowhead's  Bell,  and  I  remember  seeing  Sam'l  10 
Dickie  trying  to  dance  at  the  penny  wedding. 

Years  afterward  it  was  said  in  Thrums  that  Sam'l  had 
treated  Bell  badly,  but  he  was  never  sure  about  it  himself. 

"  It  was  a  near  thing — a  michty  near  thing,"  he  admitted 
in  the  square.  15 

"They  say,"  some  other  weaver  would  remark,  "  'at  it 
was  you  Bell  liked  best." 

"I  d'na  kin,"  Sam'l  would  reply,  "but  there's  nae  doot 
the  lassie  was  fell 1  fond  o'  me.  Ou,  a  mere  passin'  fancy's 
ye  micht  say."  20 

1  "Mighty." 


PHOEBE1 
By  O.  HENRY 

"You  are  a  man  of  many  novel  adventures  and  varied 
enterprises,"  I  said  to  Captain  Patricio  Malone.  "Do 
you  believe  that  the  possible  element  of  good  luck  or 
bad  luck — if  there  is  such  a  thing  as  luck — has  influenced 

5  your  career  or  persisted  for  or  against  you  to  such  an 
extent  that  you  were  forced  to  attribute  results  to  the 
operation  of  the  aforesaid  good  luck  or  bad  luck?" 

This  question  (of  almost  the  dull  insolence  of  legal 
phraseology)  was  put  while  we  sat  in  Rousselin's  little 

10  red-tiled  cafe  near  Congo  Square  in  New  Orleans. 

Brown-faced,  white-hatted,  finger-ringed  captains  of 
adventure  came  often  to  Rousselin's  for  the  cognac. 
They  came  from  sea  and  land,  and  were  chary  of  relating 
the  things  they  had  seen — not  because  they  were  more 

15  wonderful  than  the  fantasies  of  the  Ananiases  of  print, 
but  because  they  were  so  different.  And  I  was  a  per- 
petual wedding-guest,  always  striving  to  cast  my  button- 
hole over  the  finger  of  one  of  these  mariners  of  fortune. 
This  Captain  Malone  was  a  Hiberno-Iberian  Creole  who 

20  had  gone  to  and  fro  in  the  earth  and  walked  up  and  down 
in  it.  He  looked  like  any  other  well-dressed  man  of 
thirty-five  whom  you  might  meet,  except  that  he  was 
hopelessly  weather-tanned,  and  wore  on  his  chain  an 
ancient  ivory-and-gold  Peruvian  charm  against  evil, 

25  which  has  nothing  at  all  to  do  with  this  story. 

"My  answer  to  your  question,"  said  the  captain,  smil- 

1  From  "  Roads  of  Destiny;  "  copyright,  1909,  by  Doubleday,  Page 
&  Co.  Reprinted  by  permission.  Copyright,  1903,  by  the  Cosmo- 
politan Magazine  Company. 

266 


Phoebe  267 

ing,  "will  be  to  tell  you  the  story  of  Bad-Luck  Kearny. 
That  is,  if  you  don't  mind  hearing  it." 

My  reply  was  to  pound  on  the  table  for  Rousselin. 

"Strolling  along  Tchoupitoulas  Street  one  night," 
began  Captain  Malone,  "I  noticed,  without  especially  5 
taxing  my  interest,  a  small  man  walking  rapidly  toward  me. 
He  stepped  upon  a  wooden  cellar  door,  crashed  through 
it,  and  disappeared.  I  rescued  him  from  a  heap  of  soft 
coal  below.  He  dusted  himself  briskly,  swearing  fluently 
in  a  mechanical  tone,  as  an  underpaid  actor  recites  the  10 
gipsy's  curse.  Gratitude  and  the  dust  in  his  throat 
seemed  to  call  for  fluids  to  clear  them  away.  His  desire 
for  liquidation  was  expressed  so  heartily  that  I  went  with 
him  to  a  cafe  down  the  street  where  we  had  some  vile 
vermouth  and  bitters.  15 

"Looking  across  that  little  table  I  had  my  first  clear 
sight  of  Francis  Kearny.  He  was  about  five  feet  seven, 
but  as  tough  as  a  cypress  knee.  His  hair  was  darkest 
red,  his  mouth  such  a  mere  slit  that  you  wondered  how 
the  flood  of  his  words  came  rushing  from  it.  His  eyes  were  20 
the  brightest  and  lightest  blue  and  the  hopefulest  that  I 
ever  saw.  He  gave  the  double  impression  that  he  was  at 
bay  and  that  you  had  better  not  crowd  him  further. 

"'Just  in  from  a  gold-hunting  expedition  on  the  coast 
of  Costa  Rica,'  he  explained.    'Second  mate  of  a  banana  25 
steamer  told  me  the  natives  were  panning  out  enough  from 
the  beach  sands  to  buy  all  the  rum,  red  calico,  and  parlor 
melodeons  in  the  world.    The  day  I  got  there  a  syndicate 
named  Incorporated  Jones  gets  a  government  concession 
to  all  minerals  from  a  given  point.    For  a  next  choice  I  30 
take  coast  fever  and  count  green  and  blue  lizards  for  six 
weeks  in  a  grass  hut.    I  had  to  be  notified  when  I  was  well, 
for  the  reptiles  were  actually  there.    Then  I  shipped  back 


268  O.  Henry 

as  third  cook  on  a  Norwegian  tramp  that  blew  up  her  boiler 
two  miles  below  Quarantine.  I  was  due  to  bust  through 
that  cellar  door  here  to-night,  so  I  hurried  the  rest  of  the 
way  up  the  river,  roustabouting  on  a  lower  coast  packet 

5  that  made  a  landing  for  every  fisherman  that  wanted  a 
plug  of  tobacco.  And  now  I'm  here  for  what  comes  next. 
And  it'll  be  along,  it'll  be  along/  said  this  queer  Mr. 
Kearny;  'it'll  be  along  on  the  beams  of  my  bright  but  not 
very  particular  star.' 

10  "  From  the  first  the  personality  of  Kearny  charmed  me. 
I  saw  in  him  the  bold  heart,  the  restless  nature,  and  the 
valiant  front  against  the  buffets  of  fate  that  make  his 
countrymen  such  valuable  comrades  in  risk  and  adventure. 
And  just  then  I  was  wanting  such  men.  Moored  at  a 

15  fruit  company's  pier  I  had  a  500- ton  steamer  ready  to  sail 
the  next  day  with  a  cargo  of  sugar,  lumber,  and  corrugated 
iron  for  a  port  in — well,  let  us  call  the  country  Esperando — 
it  has  not  been  long  ago,  and  the  name  of  Patricio  Malone  is 
still  spoken  there  when  its  unsettled  politics  are  discussed. 

20  Beneath  'the  sugar  and  iron  were  packed  a  thousand 
Winchester  rifles.  In  Aguas  Frias,  the  capital,  Don 
Rafael  Valdevia,  Minister  of  War,  Esperando's  greatest- 
hearted  and  most  able  patriot,  awaited  my  coming.  No 
doubt  you  have  heard,  with  a  smile,  of  the  insignificant 

25  wars  and  uprisings  in  those  little  tropic  republics.  They 
make  but  a  faint  clamor  against  the  din  of  great  nations' 
battles;  but  down  there,  under  all  the  ridiculous  uniforms 
and  petty  diplomacy  and  senseless  countermarching  and 
intrigue,  are  to  be  found  statesmen  and  patriots.  Don 

30  Rafael  Valdevia  was  one.  His  great  ambition  was  to 
raise  Esperando  into  peace  and  honest  prosperity  and  the 
respect  of  the  serious  nations.  So  he  waited  for  my  rifles 
in  Aguas  Frias.  But  one  would  think  I  am  trying  to  win 
a  recruit  in  you!  No;  it  was  Francis  Kearny  I  wanted. 


Phoebe  269 

And  so  I  told  him,  speaking  long  over  our  execrable  ver- 
mouth, breathing  the  stifling  odor  from  garlic  and  tar- 
paulins, which,  as  you  know,  is  the  distinctive  flavor  of 
cafes  in  the  lower  slant  of  our  city.  I  spoke  of  the  tyrant 
President  Cruz  and  the  burdens  that  his  greed  and  insolent  5 
cruelty  laid  upon  the  people.  And  at  that  Kearny's  tears 
flowed.  And  then  I  dried  them  with  a  picture  of  the  fat 
rewards  that  would  be  ours  when  the  oppressor  should  be 
overthrown  and  the  wise  and  generous  Valdevia  in  his 
seat.  Then  Kearny  leaped  to  his  feet  and  wrung  my  hand  10 
with  the  strength  of  a  roustabout.  He  was  mine,  he  said, 
till  the  last  minion  of  the  hated  despot  was  hurled  from  the 
highest  peaks  of  the  Cordilleras  into  the  sea. 

"I  paid  the  score  and  we  went  out.    Near  the  door 
Kearny's  elbow  overturned  an  upright  glass  showcase,  15 
smashing  it  into  little  bits.     I  paid  the  storekeeper  the 
price  he  asked. 

"'Come  to  my  hotel  for  the  night,'  I  said  to  Kearny. 
'We  sail  to-morrow  at  noon.' 

"He  agreed;  but  on  the  sidewalk  he  fell  to  cursing  again  20 
in  the  dull,  monotonous,  glib  way  that  he  had  done  when 
I  pulled  him  out  of  the  coal  cellar. 

"'Captain,'  said  he,  'before  we  go  any  further,  it's  no 
more  than  fair  to  tell  you  that  I'm  known  from  Baffin's 
Bay  to  Terra  del  Fuego  as  "Bad-Luck"  Kearny.  And  25 
I'm  It.  Everything  I  get  into  goes  up  in  the  air  except 
a  balloon.  Every  bet  I  ever  made  I  lost  except  when  I 
coppered  it.  Every  boat  I  ever  sailed  on  sank  except 
the  submarines.  Everything  I  was  ever  interested  in 
went  to  pieces  except  a  patent  bombshell  that  I  invented.  30 
Everything  I  ever  took  hold  of  and  tried  to  run  I  ran  into 
the  ground  except  when  I  tried  to  plough.  And  that's  why 
they  call  me  Bad-Luck  Kearny.  I  thought  I'd  tell  you/ 

"'Bad  luck,'  said  I,  'or  what  goes  by  the  name,  may 


270  O.  Henry 

now  and  then  tangle  the  affairs  of  any  man.  But  if  it 
persist  beyond  the  estimate  of  what  we  may  call  the 
"averages"  there  must  be  a  cause  for  it.' 

"'There  is,'  said  Kearny  emphatically,  'and  when  we 
5  walk  another  square  I  will  show  it  to  you.' 

"Surprised,  I  kept  by  his  side  until  we  came  to  Canal 
Street  and  out  into  the  middle  of  its  great  width. 

"Kearny  seized  me  by  an  arm  and  pointed  a  tragic 
forefinger  at  a  rather  brilliant  star  that  shone  steadily 
10  about  thirty  degrees  above  the  horizon. 

'"That's  Saturn,'  said  he,  'the  star  that  presides  over 
bad  luck  and  evil  and  disappointment  and  nothing  doing 
and  trouble.    I  was  born  under  that  star.    Every  move  I 
make,  up  bobs  Saturn  and  blocks  it.     He's  the  hoodoo 
15  planet  of  the  heavens.     They  say  he's  73,000  miles  in 
diameter  and  no  solider  of  body  than  split-pea  soup,  and 
he's  got  as  many  disreputable  and  malignant  rings  as  Chi- 
cago.   Now,  what  kind  of  a  star  is  that  to  be  born  under? ' 
"  I  asked  Kearny  where  he  had  obtained  all  this  astonish- 
20  ing  knowledge. 

"  'From  Azrath,  the  great  astrologer  of  Cleveland,  Ohio/ 
said  he.  'That  man  looked  at  a  glass  ball  and  told  me 
my  name  before  I'd  taken  a  chair.  He  prophesied  the 
date  of  my  birth  and  death  before  I'd  said  a  word.  And 
25  then  he  cast  my  horoscope,  and  the  sidereal  system  socked 
me  in  the  solar  plexus.  It  was  bad  luck  for  Francis  Kearny 
from  A  to  Izard  and  for  his  friends  that  were  implicated 
with  him.  For  that  I  gave  up  ten  dollars.  This  Azrath 
was  sorry,  but  he  respected  his  profession  too  much  to  read 
30  the  heavens  wrong  for  any  man.  It  was  night  time,  and 
he  took  me  out  on  a  balcony  and  gave  me  a  free  view  of  the 
sky.  And  he  showed  me  which  Saturn  was,  and  how  to 
find  it  in  different  balconies  and  longitudes. 

"'But  Saturn  wasn't  all.     He  was  only  the  man  higher 


Phoebe  271 

up.  He  furnishes  so  much  bad  luck  that  they  allow  him  a 
gang  of  deputy  sparklers  to  help  hand  it  out.  They're 
circulating  and  revolving  and  hanging  around  the  main 
supply  all  the  time,  each  one  throwing  the  hoodoo  on  his 
own  particular  district.  5 

"'You  see  that  ugly  little  red  star  about  eight  inches 
above  and  to  the  right  of  Saturn?3  Kearny  asked  me. 
'  Well,  that's  her.  That's  Phoebe.  She's  got  me  in  charge. 
"By  the  day  of  your  birth,"  says  Azrath  to  me,  "your  life 
is  subjected  to  the  influence  of  Saturn.  By  the  hour  and  10 
minute  of  it  you  must  dwell  under  the  sway  and  direct 
authority  of  Phcebe,  the  ninth  satellite,"  So  said  this 
Azrath.'  Kearny  shook  his  fist  viciously  skyward.  '  Curse 
her,  she's  done  her  work  well,'  said  he.  'Ever  since  I  was 
astrologized,  bad  luck  has  followed  me  like  my  shadow,  as  15 
I  told  you.  And  for  many  years  before.  Now,  Captain, 
I've  told  you  my  handicap  as  a  man  should.  If  you're 
afraid  this  evil  star  of  mine  might  cripple  your  scheme, 
leave  me  out  of  it.' 

"  I  reassured  Kearny  as  well  as  I  could.  I  told  him  that  20 
for  the  time  we  would  banish  both  astrology  and  astronomy 
from  our  heads.  The  manifest  valor  and  enthusiasm  of 
the  man  drew  me.  'Let  us  see  what  a  little  courage  and 
diligence  will  do  against  bad  luck,'  I  said.  'We  will  sail 
to-morrow  for  Esperando.'  25 

"Fifty  miles  down  the  Mississippi  our  steamer  broke 
her  rudder.  We  sent  for  a  tug  to  tow  us  back  and  lost 
three  days.  When  we  struck  the  blue  waters  of  the  Gulf, 
all  the  storm  clouds  of  the  Atlantic  seemed  to  have  con- 
centrated above  us.  We  thought  surely  to  sweeten  those  30 
leaping  waves  with  our  sugar,  and  to  stack  our  arms  and 
lumber  on  the  floor  of  the  Mexican  Gulf. 

"Kearny  did  not  seek  to  cast  off  one  iota  of  the  burden 
of  our  danger  from  the  shoulders  of  his  fatal  horoscope. 


272  O.  Henry 

He  weathered  every  storm  on  deck,  smoking  a  black 
pipe,  to  keep  which  alight  rain  and  sea-water  seemed  but 
as  oil.  And  he  shook  his  fist  at  the  black  clouds  behind 
which  his  baleful  star  winked  its  unseen  eye.  When  the 

5  skies  cleared  one  evening,  he  reviled  his  malignant  guardian 
with  grim  humor. 

"'On  watch,  aren't  you,  you  red-headed  vixen?  Out 
making  it  hot  for  little  Francis  Kearny  and  his  friends, 
according  to  Hoyle.  Twinkle,  twinkle,  little  devil!  You're 

10  a  lady,  aren't  you? — dogging  a  man  with  bad  luck  just 
because  he  happened  to  be  born  while  your  boss  was  floor- 
walker. Get  busy  and  sink  the  ship,  you  one-eyed  banshee. 
Phcebe!  H'm!  Sounds  as  mild  as  a  milkmaid.  You  can't 
judge  a  woman  by  her  name.  Why  couldn't  I  have  had  a 

15  man  star?  I  can't  make  the  remarks  to  Phcebe  that  I  could 
to  a  man.  Oh,  Phoebe,  you  be — blasted!' 

uFor  eight  days  gales  and  squalls  and  waterspouts  beat 
us  from  our  course.  Five  days  only  should  have  landed 
us  in  Esperando,  Our  Jonah  swallowed  the  bad  credit 

20  of  it  with  appealing  frankness;  but  that  scarcely  lessened 
the  hardships  our  cause  was  made  to  suffer. 

"At  last  one  afternoon  we  steamed  into  the  calm 
estuary  of  the  little  Rio  Escondido.  Three  miles  up  this 
we  crept,  feeling  for  the  shallow  channel  between  the  low 

25  banks  that  were  crowded  to  the  edge  with  gigantic  trees 
and  riotous  vegetation.  Then  our  whistle  gave  a  little 
toot,  and  in  five  minutes  we  heard  a  shout,  and  Carlos — • 
my  brave  Carlos  Quintana — crashed  through  the  tangled 
vines  waving  his  cap  madly  for  joy. 

30  "A  hundred  yards  away  was  his  camp,  where  three 
hundred  chosen  patriots  of  Esperando  were  awaiting  our 
coming.  For  a  month  Carlos  had  been  drilling  them  there 
in  the  tactics  of  war,  and  filling  them  with  the  spirit  of 
revolution  and  liberty. 


Phoebe  273 

"'My  Captain — compadre  rnior  shouted  Carlos,  while 
yet  my  boat  was  being  lowered.  'You  should  see  them  in 
the  drill  by  companias — in  the  column  wheel — in  the  march 
by  fours — they  are  superb !  Also  in  the  manual  of  arms — 
but,  alas!  performed  only  with  sticks  of  bamboo.  The  5 
guns,  capitan — say  that  you  have  brought  the  guns!" 

"'A  thousand  Winchesters,  Carlos,'  I  called  to  him. 
'And  two  Catlings.' 

"'  Valgame  Dios!'  he  cried,  throwing  his  cap  in  the  air. 
4  We  shall  sweep  the  world! '  10 

"At  that  moment  Kearny  tumbled  from  the  steamer's 
side  into  the  river.  He  could  not  swim,  so  the  crew  threw 
him  a  rope  and  drew  him  back  aboard.  I  caught  his  eye 
and  his  look  of  pathetic  but  still  bright  and  undaunted  con- 
sciousness of  his  guilty  luck.  I  told  myself  that  although  15 
he  might  be  a  man  to  shun,  he  was  also  one  to  be  admired. 

"I  gave  orders  to  the  sailing-master  that  the  arms, 
ammunition,  and  provisions  were  to  be  landed  at  once. 
That  was  easy  in  the  steamer's  boats,  except  for  the  two 
Catling  guns.  For  their  transportation  ashore  we  carried  20 
a  stout  flatboat,  brought  for  the  purpose  in  the  steamer's 
hold. 

"In  the  meantime  I  walked  with  Carlos  to  the  camp 
and  made  the  soldiers  a  little  speech  in  Spanish,  which 
they  received  with  enthusiasm;  and  then  I  had  some  wine  25 
and  a  cigarette  in  Carlos's  tent.    Later  we  walked  back 
to  the  river  to  see  how  the  unloading  was  being  conducted. 

"The  small  arms  and  provisions  were  already  ashore, 
and  the  petty  officers  had  squads  of  men  conveying  them 
to  camp.  One  Catling  had  been  safely  landed;  the  other  30 
was  just  being  hoisted  over  the  side  of  the  vessel  as  we 
arrived.  I  noticed  Kearny  darting  about  on  board, 
seeming  to  have  the  ambition  of  ten  men,  and  to  be  doing 
the  work  of  five.  I  think  his  zeal  bubbled  over  when  he 


274  O-  Henry 

saw  Carlos  and  me.  A  rope's  end  was  swinging  loose  from 
some  part  of  the  tackle.  Kearny  leaped  impetuously  and 
caught  it.  There  was  a  crackle  and  a  hiss  and  a  smoke  of 
scorching  hemp,  and  the  Catling  dropped  straight  as  a 

5  plummet  through  the  bottom  of  the  flatboat  and  buried 
itself  in  twenty  feet  of  water  and  five  feet  of  river  mud. 

"I  turned  my  back  on  the  scene.  I  heard  Carlos's 
loud  cries  as  if  from  some  extreme  grief  too  poignant  for 
words.  I  heard  the  complaining  murmur  of  the  crew  and 

10  the  maledictions  of  Torres,  the  sailing-master — I  could 
not  bear  to  look. 

"By  night  some  degree  of  order  had  been  restored  in 
camp.  Military  rules  were  not  drawn  strictly,  and  the 
men  were  grouped  about  the  fires  of  their  several  messes, 

15  playing  games  of  chance,  singing  their  native  songs,  or 
discussing  with  voluble  animation  the  contingencies  of  our 
march  upon  the  capital. 

"To  my  tent,  which  had  been  pitched  for  me  close  to  that 
of  my  chief  lieutenant,  came  Kearny,  indomitable,  smiling, 

20  bright-eyed,  bearing  no  traces  of  the  buffets  of  his  evil 
star.  Rather  was  his  aspect  that  of  a  heroic  martyr  whose 
tribulations  were  so  high-sourced  and  glorious  that  he 
even  took  a  splendor  and  a  prestige  from  them. 

"'Well,  Captain,'  said  he,  'I  guess  you  realize  that 

25  Bad-Luck  Kearny  is  still  on  deck.  It  was  a  shame,  now, 
about  that  gun.  She  only  needed  to  be  slewed  two  inches 
to  clear  the  rail;  and  that's  why  I  grabbed  that  rope's  end. 
Who'd  have  thought  that  a  sailor — even  a  Sicilian  lubber 
on  a  banana  coaster — would  have  fastened  a  line  in  a  bow- 

30  knot?  Don't  think  I'm  trying  to  dodge  the  responsibility, 
Captain.  It's  my  luck.' 

"There  are  men,  Kearny,'  said  I  gravely,  'who  pass 
through  life  blaming  upon  luck  and  chance  the  mistakes 
that  result  from  their  own  faults  and  incompetency.  J 


Phoebe  275 

do  not  say  that  you  are  such  a  man.  But  if  all  your  mis- 
haps are  traceable  to  that  tiny  star,  the  sooner  we  en- 
dow our  colleges  with  chairs  of  moral  astronomy,  the 
better/ 

"'It  isn't  the  size  of  the  star  that  counts/  said  Kearny;  5 
'  it's  the  quality.  Just  the  way  it  is  with  women.  That's 
why  they  gave  the  biggest  planets  masculine  names,  and 
the  little  stars  feminine  ones — to  even  things  up  when  it 
comes  to  getting  their  work  in.  Suppose  they  had  called 
my  star  Agamemnon  or  Bill  McCarty  or  something  like  10 
that  instead  of  Phoebe.  Every  time  one  of  those  old  boys 
touched  their  calamity  button  and  sent  me  down  one  of 
their  wireless  pieces  of  bad  luck,  I  could  talk  back  and  tell 
'em  what  I  thought  of  'em  in  suitable  terms.  But  you 
can't  address  such  remarks  to  a  Phoebe.'  15 

"'It  pleases  you  to  make  a  joke  of  it,  Kearny/  said  I, 
without  smiling.  'But  it  is  no  joke  to  me  to  think  of  my 
Catling  mired  in  the  river  ooze/ 

"'As  to  that/  said  Kearny,  abandoning  his  light  mood 
at  once,  'I  have  already  done  what  I  could.  I  have  had  20 
some  experience  in  hoisting  stone  in  quarries.  Torres  and 
I  have  already  spliced  three  hawsers  and  stretched  them 
from  the  steamer's  stern  to  a  tree  on  shore.  We  will  rig  a 
tackle  and  have  the  gun  on  terra  firma  before  noon  to- 
morrow.' 25 

"One  could  not  remain  long  at  outs  with  Bad-Luck 
Kearny. 

"'Once  more/  said  I  to  him,  'we  will  waive  this  ques- 
tion of  luck.  Have  you  ever  had  experience  in  drilling 
raw  troops? '  30 

"'I  was  first  sergeant  and  drill-master/  said  Kearny, 
'  in  the  Chilean  army  for  one  year.  And  captain  of  artillery 
for  another.' 

" '  What  became  of  your  command? '  I  asked. 


276  O.  Henry 

"'Shot  down  to  a  man/  said  Kearny,  'during  the 
revolutions  against  Balmaceda.' 

"Somehow   the   misfortunes    of    the   evil-starred   one 
seemed  to  turn  to  me  their  comedy  side.    I  lay  back  upon 
5  my  goat's  hide  cot  and  laughed  until  the  woods  echoed. 
Kearny  grinned.    'I  told  you  how  it  was/  he  said. 

"'To-morrow/  I  said,  'I  shall  detail  one  hundred  men 
under  your  command  for  manual-of-arms  drill  and  com- 
pany evolutions.  You  will  rank  as  lieutenant.  Now,  for 
10  God's  sake,  Kearny/  I  urged  him,  "try  to  combat  this 
superstition,  if  it  is  one.  Bad  luck  may  be  like  any  other 
visitor — preferring  to  stop  where  it  is  expected.  Get  your 
mind  off  stars.  Look  upon  Esperando  as  your  planet  of 
good  fortune.' 

15      "'I  thank  you,  Captain/  said  Kearny  quietly.    'I  will 
try  to  make  it  the  best  handicap  I  ever  ran/ 

"By  noon  the  next  day  the  submerged  Catling  was 
rescued,   as  Kearny  had  promised.     Then   Carlos   and 
Manuel  Ortiz  and  Kearny  (my  lieutenants)  distributed 
20  Winchesters  among  the  troops  and  put  them  through  an 
incessant  rifle  drill.     We  fired  no  shots,  blank  or  solid, 
for  of  all  coasts  Esperando  is  the  stillest;  and  we  had  no 
desire  to  sound  any  warnings  in  the  ear  of  that  corrupt 
government  until  they  should  carry  with  them  the  mes- 
as sage  of  Liberty  and  the  downfall  of  Oppression. 

"In  the  afternoon  came  a  mule-rider  bearing  a  written 
message  to  me  from  Don  Rafael  Valdevia  in  the  capital, 
Aguas  Frias. 

"Whenever  that  man's  name  comes  to  my  lips,  words 
30  of  tribute  to  his  greatness,  his  noble  simplicity,  and  his 
conspicuous  genius  follow  irrepressibly.  He  was  a  traveler, 
a  student  of  peoples  and  governments,  a  master  of  sciences, 
a  poet,  an  orator,  a  leader,  a  soldier,  a  critic  of  the  world's 
campaigns  and  the  idol  of  the  people  of  Esperando.  I 


Phoebe  277 

had  been  honored  by  his  friendship  for  years.  It  was  I 
who  first  turned  his  mind  to  the  thought  that  he  should 
leave  for  his  monument  a  new  Esperando — a  country 
freed  from  the  rule  of  unscrupulous  tyrants,  and  a  people 
made  happy  and  prosperous  by  wise  and  impartial  legisla-  5 
tion.  When  he  had  consented  he  threw  himself  into  the 
cause  with  the  undivided  zeal  with  which  he  endowed  all  of 
his  acts.  The  coffers  of  his  great  fortune  were  opened  to 
those  of  us  to  whom  were  entrusted  the  secret  moves  of 
the  game.  His  popularity  was  already  so  great  that  he  had  T.O 
practically  forced  President  Cruz  to  offer  him  the  portfolio 
of  Minister  of  War. 

"The  time,  Don  Rafael  said  in  his  letter,  was  ripe. 
Success,  he  prophesied,  was  certain.     The  people  were 
beginning   to   clamor   publicly   against    Cruz's   misrule.  15 
Bands  of  citizens  in  the  capital  were  even  going  about  of 
nights  hurling  stones  at  public  buildings  and  expressing 
their  dissatisfaction.    A  bronze  statue  of  President  Cruz 
in  the  Botanical  Gardens  had  been  lassoed  about  the 
neck  and  overthrown.    It  only  remained  for  me  to  arrive  20 
with  my  force  and  my  thousand  rifles,  and  for  himself  to 
come  forward  and  proclaim  himself  the  people's  savior, 
to  overthrow  Cruz  in  a  single  day.    There  would  be  but 
a  half-hearted  resistance  from  the  six  hundred  government 
troops  stationed  in  the  capital.     The  country  was  ours.  25 
He  presumed  that  by  this  time  my  steamer  had  arrived 
at  Quintana's  camp.    He  proposed  the  eighteenth  of  July 
for  the  attack.    That  would  give  us  six  days  in  which  to 
strike  camp  and  march  to  Aguas  Frias.    In  the  meantime 
Don  Rafael  remained  my  good  friend  and  compadre  en  la  30 
causa  de  la  libertad. 

"On  the  morning  of  the  i4th  we  began  our  march 
toward  the  sea-following  range  of  mountains,  over  the 
sixty-mile  trail  to  the  capital.  Our  small  arms  and  pro- 


278  O.  Henry 

visions  were  laden  on  pack  mules.  Twenty  men  harnessed 
to  each  Gatling  gun  rolled  them  smoothly  along  the  flat, 
alluvial  lowlands.  Our  troops,  well-shod  and  well-fed, 
moved  with  alacrity  and  heartiness.  I  and  my  three 
5  lieutenants  were  mounted  on  the  tough  mountain  ponies 
of  the  country. 

"A  mile  out  of  camp  one  of  the  pack  mules,  becoming 
stubborn,  broke  away  from  the  train  and  plunged  from 
the  path  into  the  thicket.  The  alert  Kearny  spurred 

10  quickly  after  it  and  intercepted  its  flight.  Rising  in  his 
stirrups,  he  released  one  foot  and  bestowed  upon  the 
mutinous  animal  a  hearty  kick.  The  mule  tottered  and 
fell  with  a  crash  broadside  upon  the  ground.  As  we 
gathered  around  it,  it  walled  its  great  eyes  almost  humanly 

15  toward  Kearny  and  expired.  That  was  bad;  but  worse, 
to  our  minds,  was  the  concomitant  disaster.  Part  of  the 
mule's  burden  had  been  one  hundred  pounds  of  the  finest 
coffee  to  be  had  in  the  tropics.  The  bag  burst  and  spilled 
the  priceless  brown  mass  of  the  ground  berries  among  the 

20  dense  vines  and  weeds  of  the  swampy  land.  Mala  snerte! 
When  you  take  away  from  an  Esperandan  his  coffee,  you 
abstract  his  patriotism  and  50  per  cent,  of  his  value  as  a 
soldier.  The  men  began  to  rake  up  the  precious  stuff;  but 
I  beckoned  Kearny  back  along  the  trail  where  they  would 

25  not  hear.    The  limit  had  been  reached. 

"I  took  from  my  pocket  a  wallet  of  money  and  drew 
out  some  bills. 

"'Mr.  Kearny,'  said  I,  'here  are  some  funds  belonging 
to  Don  Rafael  Valdevia,  which  I  am  expending  in  his 

30  cause.  I  know  of  no  better  service  it  can  buy  for  him  than 
this.  Here  is  one  hundred  dollars.  Luck  or  no  luck,  we 
part  company  here.  Star  or  no  star,  calamity  seems  to 
travel  by  your  side.  You  will  return  to  the  steamer.  She 
touches  at  Amotapa  to  discharge  her  lumber  and  iron, 


Phoebe  279 

and  then  puts  back  to  New  Orleans.  Hand  this  note 
to  the  sailing-master,  who  will  give  you  passage.'  I  wrote 
on  a  leaf  torn  from  my  book,  and  placed  it  and  the  money 
in  Kearny's  hand. 

"'  Good-bye/  I  said,  extending  my  own.     'It  is  not    5 
that  I  am  displeased  with  you;  but  there  is  no  place  in 
this  expedition  for — let  us  say,  the  Senorita  Phoebe.'    I 
said  this  with  a  smile,  trying  to  smooth  the  thing  for  him. 
'  May  you  have  better  luck,  companero.' 

"  Kearny  took  the  money  and  the  paper.  10 

"'It  was  just  a  little  touch,'  said  he,  'just  a  little  lift 
with  the  toe  of  my  boot — but  what's  the  odds? — that 
blamed  mule  would  have  died  if  I  had  only  dusted  his 
ribs  with  a  powder  puff.  It  was  my  luck.  Well,  Captain, 
I  would  have  liked  to  be  in  that  little  fight  with  you  over  15 
in  Aguas  Frias.  Success  to  the  cause.  Adiosl* 

"He  turned  around  and  set  off  down  the  trail  without 
looking  back.  The  unfortunate  mule's  pack-saddle  was 
transferred  to  Kearny's  pony,  and  we  again  took  up  the 
march.  20 

"Four  days  we  journeyed  over  the  foot-hills  and  moun- 
tains, fording  icy  torrents,  winding  around  the  crumbling 
brows  of  ragged  peaks,  creeping  along  rocky  flanges  that 
overlooked  awful  precipices,  crawling  breathlessly  over 
tottering  bridges  that  crossed  bottomless  chasms.  25 

"On  the  evening  of  the  seventeenth  we  camped  by  a 
little  stream  on  the  bare  hills  five  miles  from  Aguas  Frias. 
At  daybreak  we  were  to  take  up  the  march  again. 

"At  midnight  I  was  standing  outside  my  tent  inhaling 
the  fresh  cold  air.  The  stars  were  shining  bright  in  the  30 
cloudless  sky,  giving  the  heavens  their  proper  aspect  of 
illimitable  depth  and  distance  when  viewed  from  the 
vague  darkness  of  the  blotted  earth.  Almost  at  its  zenith 
was  the  planet  Saturn;  and  with  a  half-smile  I  observed 


280  O.  Henry 

the  sinister  red  sparkle  of  his  malignant  attendant— the 
demon  star  of  Kearny's  ill  luck.  And  then  my  thoughts 
strayed  across  the  hills  to  the  scene  of  our  coming  triumph 
where  the  heroic  and  noble  Don  Rafael  awaited  our  coming 

5  to  set  a  new  and  shining  star  in  the  firmament  of  nations. 

"I  heard  a  slight  rustling  in  the  deep  grass  to  my  right. 

I  turned  and  saw  Kearny  coming  toward  me.    He  was 

ragged  and  dew-drenched  and  limping.    His  hat  and  one 

boot  were  gone.    About  one  foot  he  had  tied  some  make- 

10  shift  of  cloth  and  grass.  But  his  manner  as  he  approached 
was  that  of  a  man  who  knows  his  own  virtues  well  enough 
to  be  superior  to  rebuffs. 

"'Well,  sir/  I  said,  staring  at  him  coldly,  'if  there  is 
anything  in  persistence,  I  see  no  reason  why  you  should 

15  not  succeed  in  wrecking  and  ruining  us  yet.' 

"'I  kept  half  a  day's  journey  behind,'  said  Kearny, 
fishing  out  a  stone  from  the  covering  of  his  lame  foot 
'so  the  bad  luck  wouldn't  touch  you.  I  couldn't  help 
it,  Captain;  I  wanted  to  be  in  on  this  game.  It  was  a 

20  pretty  tough  trip,  especially  in  the  department  of  the 
commissary.  In  the  low  grounds  there  were  always 
bananas  and  oranges.  Higher  up  it  was  worse;  but  your 
men  left  a  good  deal  of  goat  meat  hanging  on  the  bushes 
in  the  camps.  Here's  your  hundred  dollars.  You're 

25  nearly  there  now,  captain.  Let  me  in  on  the  scrapping 
to-morrow/ 

"'Not  for  a  hundred  times  a  hundred  would  I  have 
the  tiniest  thing  go  wrong  with  my  plans  now,'  I  said, 
'whether  caused  by  evil  planets  or  the  blunders  of  mere 

30  man.  But  yonder  is  Aguas  Frias,  five  miles  away,  and  a 
clear  road.  I  am  of  the  mind  to  defy  Saturn  and  all  his 
satellites  to  spoil  our  success  now.  At  any  rate,  I  will 
not  turn  away  to-night  as  weary  a  traveler  and  as  good  a 
soldier  as  you  are,  Lieutenant  Kearny.  Manuel  Ortiz's 


Phoebe  281 

tent  is  there  by  the  brightest  fire.  Rout  him  out  and  tell 
him  to  supply  you  with  food  and  blankets  and  clothes. 
We  march  again  at  daybreak/ 

"Kearny  thanked  me  briefly  but  feelingly  and  moved 
away.  5 

"He  had  gone  scarcely  a  dozen  steps  when  a  sudden 
flash  of  bright  light  illumined  the  surrounding  hills;  a 
sinister,  growing,  hissing  sound  like  escaping  steam  filled 
my  ears.  Then  followed  a  roar  as  of  distant  thunder, 
which  grew  louder  every  instant.  This  terrifying  noise  10 
culminated  in  a  tremendous  explosion,  which  seemed  to 
rock  the  hills  as  an  earthquake  would;  the  illumination 
waxed  to  a  glare  so  fierce  that  I  clapped  my  hands  to  my 
eyes  to  save  them.  I  thought  the  end  of  the  world  had 
come.  I  could  think  of  no  natural  phenomenon  that  15 
would  explain  it.  My  wits  were  staggering.  The  deafen- 
ing explosion  trailed  off  into  the  rumbling  roar  that  had 
preceded  it;  and  through  this  I  heard  the  frightened 
shouts  of  my  troops  as  they  stumbled  from  their  resting- 
places  and  rushed  wildly  about.  Also  I  heard  the  harsh  20 
tones  of  Kearny 's  voice  crying:  'They'll  blame  it  on  me, 
of  course,  and  what  the  devil  it  is,  it's  not  Francis  Kearny 
that  can  give  you  an  answer.' 

"I  opened  my  eyes.     The  hills  were  still  there,  dark 
and  solid.    It  had  not  been,  then,  a  volcano  or  an  earth-  25 
quake.    I  looked  up  at  the  sky  and  saw  a  comet-like  trail 
crossing   the 'zenith   and    extending   westward — a   fiery 
trail  waning  fainter  and  narrower  each  moment. 

"'A  meteor!'  I  called  aloud.  'A  meteor  has  fallen. 
There  is  no  danger.'  30 

"And  then  all  other  sounds  were  drowned  by  a  great 
shout  from  Kearny's  throat.  He  had  raised  both  hands 
above  his  head  and  was  standing  tiptoe. 

"'PHCEBE'S   GONE!'  he  cried,  with  all  his  lungs. 


282  O.  Hfenry 

'She's  busted  and  gone  to  hell.  Look,  Captain,  the  little 
red-headed  hoodoo  has  blown  herself  to  smithereens. 
She  found  Kearny  too  tough  to  handle,  and  she  puffed 
up  with  spite  and  meanness  till  her  boiler  blew  up.  It'll 
5  be  Bad-Luck  Kearny  no  more.  Oh,  let  us  be  joyful  1 

"'Humpty  Dumpty  sat  on  a  wall; 
Humpty  busted,  and  that'll  be  allP 

"I  looked  up,  wondering,  and  picked  out  Saturn  in 
his  place.  But  the  small  red  twinkling  luminary  in  his 

10  vicinity,  which  Kearny  had  pointed  out  to  me  as  his  evil 
star,  had  vanished.  I  had  seen  it  there  but  half  an  hour 
before;  there  was  no  doubt  that  one  of  those  awful  and 
mysterious  spasms  of  nature  had  hurled  it  from  the 
heavens. 

15      "I  clapped  Kearny  on  the  shoulder. 

"'Little  man,'  said  I,  'let  this  clear  the  way  for  you. 
It  appears  that  astrology  has  failed  to  subdue  you.  Your 
horoscope  must  be  cast  anew  with  pluck  and  loyalty  for 
controlling  stars.  I  play  you  to  win.  Now,  get  to  your 

20  tent,  and  sleep.    Daybreak  is  the  word.' 

"At  nine  o'clock  on  the  morning  of  the  eighteenth  cf 
July  I  rode  into  Aguas  Frias  with  Kearny  at  my  side. 
In  his  clean  linen  suit  and  with  his  military  poise  and 
keen  eye  he  was  a  model  of  a  fighting  adventurer.  I 

25  had  visions  of  him  riding  as  commander  of  President 
Valdevia's  body-guard  when  the  plums  of  the  new  republic 
should  begin  to  fall. 

"Carlos  followed  with  the  troops  and  supplies.  He 
was  to  halt  in  a  wood  outside  the  town  and  remain  con- 

30  cealed  there  until  he  received  the  word  to  advance. 

"Kearny  and  I  rode  down  the  Calle  Ancha  toward  the 
residencia  of  Don  Rafael  at  the  other  side  of  the  town. 
As  we  passed  the  superb  white  buildings  of  the  University 


Phoebe  283 

of  Esperando,  I  saw  at  an  open  window  the  gleaming  spec- 
tacles and  bald  head  of  Herr  Bergowitz,  professor  of  the 
natural  sciences  and  friend  of  Don  Rafael  and  of  me  and 
of  the  cause.  He  waved  his  hand  to  me,  with  his  broad 
bland  smile.  5 

"There  was  no  excitement  apparent  in  Aguas  Frias. 
The  people  went  about  leisurely  as  at  all  times;  the  market 
was  thronged  with  bareheaded  women  buying  fruit  and 
came;  we  heard  the  twang  and  tinkle  of  string  bands 
in  the  patios  of  the  cantinas.  We  could  see  that  it  was  a  10 
waiting  game  that  Don  Rafael  was  playing. 

"His  residencia  was  a  large  but  low  building  around 
a  great  courtyard  in  grounds  crowded  with  ornamental 
trees  and  tropic  shrubs.  At  his  door  an  old  woman  who 
came  informed  us  that  Don  Rafael  had  not  yet  arisen.  15 

"'Tell  him,'  said  I,  'that  Captain  Malone  and  a  friend 
wish  to  see  him  at  once.  Perhaps  he  has  overslept.' 

"  She  came  back  looking  frightened. 

"'I  have  called,'  she  said,  'and  rung  his  bell  many 
times,  but  he  does  not  answer.'  20 

"I  knew  where  his  sleeping-room  was.  Kearny  and 
I  pushed  by  her  and  went  to  it.  I  put  my  shoulder  against 
the  thin  door  and  forced  it  open. 

"In  an  armchair  by  a  great  table  covered  with  maps 
and  books  sat  Don  Rafael  with  his  eyes  closed.    I  touched  25 
his  hand.    He  had  been  dead  many  hours.    On  his  head 
above  one  ear  was  a  wound  caused  by  a  heavy  blow. 
It  had  ceased  to  bleed  long  before. 

"I  made  the  old  woman  call  a  mozo,  and  dispatched 
him  in  haste  to  fetch  Herr  Bergowitz.  30 

"He  came,  and  we  stood  about  as  if  we  were  half  stunned 
by  the  awful  shock.  Thus  can  the  letting  of  a  few  drops 
of  blood  from  one  man's  veins  drain  the  life  of  a  nation. 

"Presently  Herr  Bergowitz  stooped  and  picked  up  a 


284  O.  Henry 

darkish  stone  the  size  of  an  orange  which  he  saw  under 
the  table.  He  examined  it  closely  through  his  great 
glasses  with  the  eye  of  science. 

'"A  fragment,'  said  he,  'of  a  detonating  meteor.    The 

5  most  remarkable  one  in  twenty  years  exploded  above 
this  city  a  little  after  midnight  this  morning.' 

"The  professor  looked  quickly  up  at  the  ceiling.  We 
saw  the  blue  sky  through  a  hole  the  size  of  an  orange 
nearly  above  Don  Rafael's  chair. 

10  "I  heard  a  familiar  sound,  and  turned.  Kearny  had 
thrown  himself  on  the  floor  and  was  babbling  his  com- 
pendium of  bitter,  blood-freezing  curses  against  the  star  of 
his  evil  luck. 

"Undoubtedly  Phoebe  had  been  feminine.    Even  when 

15  hurtling  on  her  way  to  fiery  dissolution  and  everlasting 
doom,  the  last  word  had  been  hers." 

Captain  Malone  was  not  unskilled  in  narrative.  He 
knew  the  point  where  a  story  should  end.  I  sat  reveling 
in  his  effective  conclusion  when  he  aroused  me  by  con- 
20  tinuing: 

"Of  course,"  said  he,  "our  schemes  were  at  an  end. 
There  was  no  one  to  take  Don  Rafael's  place.  Our  little 
army  melted  away  like  dew  before  the  sun. 

"One  day  after  I  had  returned  to  New  Orleans  I  re- 
25  lated  this  story  to  a  friend  who  holds  a  professorship 
in  Tulane  University. 

"When  I  had  finished  he  laughed  and  asked  whether  I 
had  any  knowledge  of  Kearny's  luck  afterward.  I  told 
him  no,  that  I  had  seen  him  no  more;  but  that  when  he 
30  left  me,  he  had  expressed  confidence  that  his  future  would 
be  successful  now  that  his  unlucky  star  had  been  over- 
thrown. 

"'No  doubt,'  said  the  professor,  'he  is  happier  not  to 


Phoebe  285 

know  one  fact.  If  he  derived  his  bad  luck  from  Phoebe, 
the  ninth  satellite  of  Saturn,  that  malicious  lady  is  still 
engaged  in  overlooking  his  career.  The  star  close  to 
Saturn  that  he  imagined  to  be  her  was  near  that  planet 
simply  by  the  chance  of  its  orbit — probably  at  different  5 
times  he  has  regarded  many  other  stars  that  happened 
to  be  in  Saturn's  neighborhood  as  his  evil  one.  The 
real  Phoebe  is  visible  only  through  a  very  good  telescope.' 

"About  a  year  afterward,"  continued  Captain  Malone, 
"I  was  wralking  down  a  street  that  crossed  the  Poydras  10 
Market.  An  immensely  stout,  pink-faced  lady  in  black 
satin  crowded  me  from  the  narrow  sidewalk  with  a  frown. 
Behind  her  trailed  a  little  man  laden  to  the  gunwales 
with  bundles  and  bags  of  goods  and  vegetables. 

"It  was  Kearny — but  changed.     I  stopped  and  shook  15 
one  of  Jjis  hands,  which  still  clung  to  a  bag  of  garlic  and 
red  peppers. 

"'How  is  the  luck,  old  companero?'    I  asked  him.     I 
had  not  the  heart  to  tell  him  the  truth  about  his  star. 

" ' Well,'  said  he,  'I  am  married,  as  you  may  guess.'          20 

"'Francis!'  called  the  big  lady,  in  deep  tones,  'are  you 
going  to  stop  in  the  street  talking  all  day? ' 

"'I  am  coming,  Phcebe  dear,'  said  Kearny,  hastening 
after  her." 

Captain  Malone  ceased  again.  25 

"After  all,  do  you  believe  in  luck?"  I  asked. 
"Do  you?"  answered  the  captain,  with  his  ambiguous 
smile  shaded  by  the  brim  of  his  soft  straw  hat. 


THE  MAN  WHO  WAS 

By  RUDYARD  KIPLING 

LET  it  be  clearly  understood  that  the  Russian  is  a  de- 
lightful person  till  he  tucks  his  shirt  in.  As  an  Oriental 
he  is  charming.  It  is  only  when  he  insists  upon  being 
treated  as  the  most  easterly  of  Western  peoples,  instead  of 

5  the  most  westerly  of  Easterns,  that  he  becomes  a  racial 
anomaly  extremely  difficult  to  handle.  The  host  never 
knows  which  side  of  his  nature  is  going  to  turn  up  next. 

Dirkovitch  was  a  Russian — a  Russian  of  the  Russians, 
as  he  said — who  appeared  to  get  his  bread  by  serving  the 

10  czar  as  an  officer  in  a  Cossack  regiment,  and  correspond- 
ing for  a  Russian  newspaper  with  a  name  that  was  never 
twice  the  same.  He  was  a  handsome  young  Oriental,  with 
a  taste  for  wandering  through  unexplored  portions  of  the 
earth,  and  he  arrived  in  India  from  nowhere  in  particular. 

15  At  least  no  living  man  could  ascertain  whether  it  was  by 
way  of  Balkh,  Budukhshan,  Chitral,  Beloochistan,  Nepaul, 
or  anywhere  else.  The  Indian  government,  being  in  an 
unusually  affable  mood,  gave  orders  that  he  was  to  be 
civilly  treated,  and  shown  everything  that  was  to  be 

20  seen;  so  he  drifted,  talking  bad  English  and  worse  French, 
from  one  city  to  another  till  he  foregathered  with  her 
Majesty's  White  Hussars  in  the  city  of  Peshawur,  which 
stands  at  the  mouth  of  that  narrow  sword-cut  in  the  hills 
that  men  call  the  Khyber  Pass.  He  was  undoubtedly  an 

25  officer,  and  he  was  decorated,  after  the  manner  of  the 
Russians,  with  little  enameled  crosses,  and  he  could  talk, 
and  (though  this  has  nothing  to  do  with  his  merits)  he  had 
been  given  up  as  a  hopeless  task  or  case  by  the  Black 

286 


The  Man  Who  Was  287 

Tyrones,  who,  individually  and  collectively,  with  hot 
whisky  and  honey,  mulled  brandy  and  mixed  spirits  of  all 
kinds,  had  striven  in  all  hospitality  to  make  him  drunk. 
And  when  the  Black  Tyrones,  who  are  exclusively  Irish, 
fail  to  disturb  the  peace  of  head  of  a  foreigner,  that  for-  5 
eigner  is  certain  to  be  a  superior  man.  This  was  the  argu- 
ment of  the  Black  Tyrones,  but  they  were  ever  an  unruly 
and  self-opinionated  regiment,  and  they  allowed  junior 
subalterns  of  four  years'  service  to  choose  their  wines. 
The  spirits  were  always  purchased  by  the  colonel  and  a  10 
committee  of  majors.  And  a  regiment  that  would  so 
behave  may  be  respected  but  cannot  be  loved. 

The  White  Hussars  were  as  conscientious  in  choosing 
their  wine  as  in  charging  the  enemy.    There  was  a  brandy 
that  had  been  purchased  by  a  cultured  colonel  a  few  years  15 
after  the  battle  of  Waterloo.    It  has  been  maturing  ever 
since,  and  it  was  a  marvelous  brandy  at  the  purchasing. 
The  memory  of  that  liquor  would  cause  men  to  weep  as 
they  lay  dying  in  the  teak  forests  of  upper  Burmah  or  the 
slime  of  the  Irrawaxldy.    And  there  was  a  port  which  was  20 
notable;  and  there  was  a  champagne  of  an  obscure  brand, 
which  always  came  to  mess  without  any  labels,  because 
the  White  Hussars  wished  none  to  know  where  the  source 
of  supply  might  be  found.    The  officer  on  whose  head  the 
champagne  choosing  lay,  was  forbidden  the  use  of  tobacco  25 
for  six  weeks  previous  to  sampling. 

This  particularity  of  detail  is  necessary  to  emphasize 
the  fact  that  that  champagne,  that  port,  and  above  all, 
that  brandy — the  green  and  yellow  and  white  liqueurs 
did  not  count — was  placed  at  the  absolute  disposition  30 
of  Dirkovitch,  and  he  enjoyed  himself  hugely — even 
more  than  among  the  Black  Tyrones. 

But  he  remained  distressingly  European  through  it  all. 
The   White    Hussars   were — "My    dear    true    friends," 


288  Rudyard  Kipling 

•'Fellow-soldiers  glorious,"  and  "Brothers  inseparable." 
He  would  unburden  himself  by  the  hour  on  the  glorious 
future  that  awaited  the  combined  arms  of  England  and 
Russia  when  their  hearts  and  their  territories  should  run 
5  side  by  side,  and  the  great  mission  of  civilizing  Asia 
should  begin.  That  was  unsatisfactory,  because  Asia  is 
not  going  to  be  civilized  after  the  methods  of  the  West. 
There  is  too  much  Asia,  and  she  is  too  old.  You  cannot 
reform  a  lady  of  many  lovers,  and  Asia  has  been  insatiable 

10  in  her  flirtations  aforetime.  She  will  never  attend  Sunday 
school,  or  learn  to  vote  save  with  swords  for  tickets. 

Dirkovitch  knew  this  as  well  as  any  one  else,  but  it 
suited  him  to  talk  special-correspondently  and  to  make 
himself  as  genial  as  he  could.  Now  and  then  he  volun- 

15  teered  a  little,  a  very  little,  information  about  his  own 
Sotnia  of  Cossacks,  left  apparently  to  look  after  them- 
selves somewhere  at  the  back  of  beyond.  He  had  done 
rough  work  in  Central  Asia,  and  had  seen  rather  more  help- 
yourself  fighting  than  most  men  of  his  years.  But  he  was 

20  careful  never  to  betray  his  superiority,  and  more  than  care- 
ful to  praise  on  all  occasions  the  appearance,  drill,  uniform, 
and  organization  of  her  Majesty's  White  Hussars.  And, 
indeed,  they  were  a  regiment  to  be  admired.  When 
Mrs.  Durgan,  widow  of  the  late  Sir  John  Durgan,  arrived 

25  in  their  station,  and  after  a  short  time  had  been  proposed 
to  by  every  single  man  at  mess,  she  put  the  public  senti- 
ment very  neatly  when  she  explained  that  they  were  all 
so  nice  that  unless  she  could  marry  them  all,  including  the 
colonel  and  some  majors  who  were  already  married,  she 

30  was  not  going  to  content  herself  with  one  of  them.  Where- 
fore she  wedded  a  little  man  in  a  rifle  regiment — being 
by  nature  contradictious— and  the  White  Hussars  were 
going  to  wear  crape  on  their  arms,  but  compromised  by 
attending  the  wedding  in  full  force,  and  lining  the  aisle 


The  Man  Who  Was  289 

with  unutterable  reproach.  She  had  jilted  them  all — 
from  Basset-Holmer,  the  senior  captain,  to  Little  Mildred, 
the  last  subaltern,  and  he  could  have  given  her  four  thou- 
sand a  year  and  a  title.  He  was  a  viscount,  and  on  his 
arrival  the  mess  had  said  he  had  better  go  into  the  Guards,  5 
because  they  were  all  sons  of  large  grocers  and  small 
clothiers  in  the  Hussars,  but  Mildred  begged  very  hard 
to  be  allowed  to  stay,  and  behaved  so  prettily  that  he 
was  forgiven,  and  became  a  man,  which  is  much  more  im- 
portant than  being  any  sort  of  viscount.  10 

The  only  persons  who  did  not  share  the  general  regard 
for  the  White  Hussars  were  a  few  thousand  gentlemen  of 
Jewish  extraction  who  lived  across  the  border,  and  an- 
swered to  the  name  of  Pathan.  They  had  only  met  the 
regiment  officially,  and  for  something  less  than  twenty  15 
minutes,  but  the  interview,  which  was  complicated  with 
many  casualties,  had  filled  them  with  prejudice.  They 
even  called  the  White  Hussars  "  children  of  the  devil," 
and  sons  of  persons  whom  it  would  be  perfectly  impossible 
to  meet  in  decent  society.  Yet  they  were  not  above  20 
making  their  aversion  fill  their  money  belts.  The  regiment 
possessed  carbines,  beautiful  Martini-Henri  carbines,  that 
would  cob  a  bullet  into  an  enemy's  camp  at  one  thousand 
yards,  and  were  even  handier  than  the  long  rifle.  There- 
fore they  were  coveted  all  along  the  border,  and  since  de-  25 
mand  inevitably  breeds  supply,  they  were  supplied  at  the 
risk  of  life  and  limb  for  exactly  their  weight  in  coined 
silver — seven  and  one  half  pounds  of  rupees,  or  sixteen 
pounds  and  a  few  shillings  each,  reckoning  the  rupee  at  par. 
They  were  stolen  at  night  by  snaky-haired  thieves  that  30 
crawled  on  their  stomachs  under  the  nose  of  the  sentries; 
they  disappeared  mysteriously  from  armracks;  and  in 
the  hot  weather,  when  all  the  doors  and  windows  were 
open,  they  vanished  like  puffs  of  their  own  smoke.  The 


290  Rudyard  Kipling 

border  people  desired  them  first  for  their  own  family 
vendettas,  and  then  for  contingencies.  But  in  the  long 
cold  nights  of  the  Northern  Indian  winter  they  were  stolen 
most  extensively.  The  traffic  of  murder  was  liveliest 
5  among  the  hills  at  that  season,  and  prices  ruled  high. 
The  regimental  guards  were  first  doubled  and  then  trebled. 
A  trooper  does  not  much  care  if  he  loses  a  weapon — gov- 
ernment must  make  it  good — but  he  deeply  resents  the 
loss  of  his  sleep.  The  regiment  grew  very  angry,  and  one 

10  night-thief  who  managed  to  limp  away  bears  the  visible 
marks  of  their  anger  upon  him  to  this  hour.  That  incident 
stopped  the  burglaries  for  a  time,  and  the  guards  were 
reduced  accordingly,  and  the  regiment  devoted  itself 
to  polo  with  unexpected  results,  for  it  beat  by  two  goals 

15  to  one  that  very  terrible  polo  corps  the  Lushkar  Light 

Horse,  though  the  latter  had  four  ponies  apiece  for  a 

short  hour's  fight,  as  well  as  a  native  officer  who  played 

like  a  lambent  flame  across  the  ground. 

Then  they  gave  a  dinner  to  celebrate  the  event.    The 

20  Lushkar  team  came,  and  Dirkovitch  came,  in  the  fullest 
full  uniform  of  Cossack  officer,  which  is  as  full  as  a  dressing- 
gown,  and  was  introduced  to  the  Lushkars,  and  opened 
his  eyes  as  he  regarded  them.  They  were  lighter  men 
than  the  Hussars,  and  they  carried  themselves  with  the 

25  swing  that  is  the  peculiar  right  of  the  Punjab  frontier  force 
and  all  irregular  horse.  Like  everything  else  in  the  service, 
it  has  to  be  learned;  but,  unlike  many  things,  it  is  never 
forgotten,  and  remains  on  the  body  till  death. 

The  great  beam-roofed  mess  room  of  the  White  Hussars 

30  was  a  sight  to  be  remembered.  All  the  mess  plate  was  on 
the  long  table— the  same  table  that  had  served  up  the 
bodies  of  five  dead  officers  in  a  forgotten  fight  long  and 
long  ago — the  dingy,  battered  standards  faced  the  door 
of  entrance,  clumps  of  winter  roses  lay  between  the  silver 


The  Man  Who  Was  291 

candlesticks,  the  portraits  of  eminent  officers  deceased 
looked  down  on  their  successors  from  between  the  heads 
of  sambhur,  nilghai,  maikhor,  and,  pride  of  all  the  mess, 
two  grinning  snow-leopards  that  had  cost  Basset-Holmer 
four  months'  leave  that  he  might  have  spent  in  England  5 
instead  of  on  the  road  to  Thibet,  and  the  daily  risk  of  his 
life  on  ledge,  snowslide,  and  glassy  grass  slope. 

The  servants,  in  spotless  white  muslin  and  the  crest 
of  their  regiments  on  the  brow  of  their  turbans,  waited 
behind  their  masters,  who  were  clad  in  the  scarlet  and  10 
gold  of  the  White  Hussars  and  the  cream  and  silver  of 
the  Lushkar  Light  Horse.  Dirkovitch's  dull  green  uni- 
form was  the  only  dark  spot  at  the  board,  but  his  big 
onyx  eyes  made  up  for  it.  He  was  fraternizing  effusively 
with  the  captain  of  the  Lushkar  team,  who  was  wonder-  15 
ing  how  many  of  Dirkovitch's  Cossacks  his  own  long, 
lathy  down-countrymen  could  account  for  in  a  fair  charge. 
But  one  does  not  speak  of  these  things  openly. 

The  talk  rose  higher  and  higher,  and  the  regimental 
band  played  between  the  courses,  as  is  the  immemorial  20 
custom,  till  all  tongues  ceased  for  a  moment  with  the  re- 
moval of  the  dinner  slips  and  the  First  Toast  of  Obliga- 
tion, when  the  colonel,  rising,  said,  "Mr.  Vice,  the  Queen," 
and  Little  Mildred  from  the  bottom  of  the  table  answered, 
"The  Queen,  God  bless  her!"  and  the  big  spurs  clanked  as  25 
the  big  men  heaved  themselves  up  and  drank  the  Queen, 
upon  whose  pay  they  were  falsely  supposed  to  pay  their 
mess  bills.  That  sacrament  of  the  mess  never  grows  old, 
and  never  ceases  to  bring  a  lump  into  the  throat  of  the 
listener  wherever  he  be,  by  land  or  by  sea.  Dirkovitch  30 
rose  with  his  "brothers  glorious,"  but  he  could  not  under- 
stand. No  one  but  an  officer  can  understand  what  the 
toast  means;  and  the  bulk  have  more  sentiment  than  com- 
prehension. It  all  comes  to  the  same  in  the  end,  as  the 


292  Rudyard  Kipling 

enemy  said  when  he  was  wriggling  on  a  lance  point. 
Immediately  after  the  little  silence  that  follows  on  the 
ceremony  there  entered  the  native  officer  who  had  played 
for  the  Lushkar  team.  He  could  not  of  course  eat  with  the 

5  alien,  but  he  came  in  at  dessert,  all  six  feet  of  him,  with 
the  blue-and-silver  turban  atop,  and  the  big  black  top- 
boots  below.  The  mess  rose  joyously  as  he  thrust  forward 
the  hilt  of  his  saber,  in  token  of  fealty,  for  the  colonel  of 
the  White  Hussars  to  touch,  and  dropped  into  a  vacant 

10  chair  amid  shouts  of  "Rung  ho!  Hira  Singh!"  (which 
being  translated  means  "Go  in  and  win!").  "Did  I 
whack  you  over  the  knee,  old  man?"  "Ressaidar  Sahib, 
what  the  devil  made  you  play  that  kicking  pig  of  a  pony 
in  the  last  ten  minutes?"  "Shabash,  Ressaidar  Sahib!" 

15  Then  the  voice  of  the  colonel;  "The  health  of  Ressaidar 
Hira  Singh!" 

After  the  shouting  had  died  away,  Hira  Singh  rose  to 
reply,  for  he  was  the  cadet  of  a  royal  house,  the  son  of  a 
king's  son,  and  knew  what  was  due  on  these  occasions. 

20  Thus  he  spoke  in  the  vernacular: — 

"Colonel  Sahib  and  officers  of  this  regiment,  much 
honor  have  you  done  me.  This  will  I  remember.  We 
came  down  from  afar  to  play  you;  but  we  were  beaten." 
("No  fault  of  yours,  Ressaidar  Sahib.  Played  on  our 

25  own  ground,  y'know.  Your  ponies  were  cramped  from 
the  railway.  Don't  apologize.")  "Therefore  perhaps 
we  will  come  again  if  it  be  so  ordained."  ("Hear!  Hear, 
hear,  indeed!  Bravo!  Hsh!")  "Then  we  will  play  you 
afresh"  ("Happy  to  meet  you"),  "till  there  are  left  no 

30  feet  upon  our  ponies.  Thus  far  for  sport."  He  dropped 
one  hand  on  his  sword  hilt  and  his  eye  wandered  to  Dirko- 
vitch  lolling  back  in  his  chair.  "But  if  by  the  will  of  God 
there  arises  any  other  game  which  is  not  the  polo  game, 
then  be  assured,  Colonel  Sahib  and  officers,  that  we  shall 


The  Man  Who  Was  293 

play  it  out  side  by  side,  though  they" — again  his  eye 
sought  Dirkovitch — "though  they,  I  say,  have  fifty  ponies 
to  our  one  horse."  And  with  a  deep-mouthed  Rung  ho! 
that  rang  like  a  musket  butt  on  flagstones,  he  sat  down 
amid  shoutings.  5 

Dirkovitch,  who  had  devoted  himself  steadily  to  the 
brandy — the  terrible  brandy  aforementioned— did  not 
understand,  nor  did  the  expurgated  translations  offered 
to  him  at  all  convey  the  point.  Decidedly  the  native 
officer's  was  the  speech  of  the  evening,  and  the  clamor  10 
might  have  continued  to  the  dawn  had  it  not  been  broken 
by  the  noise  of  a  shot  without  that  sent  every  man  feeling 
at  his  defenseless  left  side.  It  is  notable  that  Dirkovitch 
"reached  back,"  after  the  American  fashion — a  gesture 
that  set  the  captain  of  the  Lushkar  team  wondering  how  15 
Cossack  officers  were  armed  at  mess.  Then  there  was  a 
scuffle,  and  a  yell  of  pain. 

"Carbine  stealing  again!"  said  the  adjutant,  calmly 
sinking  back  in  his  chair.  "This  comes  of  reducing  the 
guards.  I  hope  the  sentries  have  killed  him."  20 

The  feet  of  armed  men  pounded  on  the  veranda  flags, 
and  it  sounded  as  though  something  was  being  dragged. 

"Why  don't  they  put  him  in  the  cells  till  the  morn- 
ing?" said  the  colonel,  testily.  "See  if  they've  damaged 
him,  sergeant."  25 

The  mess-sergeant  fled  out  into  the  darkness,  and  re- 
turned with  two  troopers  and  a  corporal,  all  very  much 
perplexed. 

"Caught  a  man  stealin'  carbines,  sir,"  said  the  corporal. 
"Leastways   'e  was  crawling   toward  the  barricks,   sir,  30 
past  the  main-road  sentries;  an'  the  sentry  'e  says,  sir — 

The  limp  heap  of  rags  upheld  by  the  three  men  groaned. 
Never  was  seen  so  destitute  and  demoralized  an  Afghan. 
He  was  turbanless,  shoeless,  caked  with  dirt,  and  all  but 


294  Rudyard  Kipling 

dead  with  rough  handling.  Hira  Singh  started  slightly 
at  the  sound  of  the  man's  pain.  Dirkovitch  took  another 
liqueur  glass  of  brandy. 

"What  does  the  sentry  say?"  said  the  colonel. 
5      "Sez  he  speaks  English,  sir,"  said  the  corporal. 

"So  you  brought  him  into  mess  instead  of  handing 
him  over  to  the  sergeant!  If  he  spoke  all  the  tongues  of 
the  Pentecost  you've  no  business — " 

Again  the  bundle  groaned  and  muttered.   Little  Mildred 
10  had  risen  from  his  place  to  inspect.    He  jumped  back  as 
though  he  had  been  shot. 

"Perhaps  it  would  be  better,  sir,  to  send  the  men  away," 
said  he  to  the  colonel,  for  he  was  a  much-privileged  sub- 
altern. He  put  his  arms  round  the  rag-bound  horror  as 
15  he  spoke,  and  dropped  him  into  a  chair.  It  may  not 
have  been  explained  that  the  littleness  of  Mildred  lay  in 
his  being  six  feet  four,  and  big  in  proportion.  The  cor- 
poral, seeing  that  an  officer  was  disposed  to  look  after 
the  capture,  and  that  the  colonel's  eye  was  beginning  to 
20  blaze,  promptly  removed  himself  and  his  men.  The  mess 
was  left  alone  with  the  carbine  thief,  who  laid  his  head  on 
the  table  and  wept  bitterly,  hopelessly,  and  inconsolably, 
as  little  children  weep. 

Hira  Singh  leaped  to  his  feet  with  a  long-drawn  ver- 

25  nacular  oath.    "Colonel  Sahib,"  said  he,  "that  man  is  no 

Afghan,  for  they  weep  'Ai!  Air    Nor  is  he  of  Hindustan, 

for  they  weep  'Oh!  Ho!1    He  weeps  after  the  fashion  of 

the  white  men,  who  say  C0w!  Ow! '" 

"Now  where  the  dickens  did  you  get  that  knowledge, 
30  Hira  Singh?  "  said  the  captain  of  the  Lushkar  team. 

"Hear  him!"  said  Hira  Singh,  simply,  pointing  at  the 
crumpled  figure  that  wept  as  though  it  would  never  cease. 

"He  said,  'My  God!'"  said  Little  Mildred.  "I  heard 
him  say  it." 


The  Man  Who  Was  295 

The  colonel  and  the  mess  room  looked  at  the  man  in 
silence.  It  is  a  horrible  thing  to  hear  a  man  cry.  A 
woman  can  sob  from  the  top  of  her  palate,  or  her  lips,  or 
anywhere  else,  but  a  man  cries  from  his  diaphragm,  and 
it  rends  him  to  pieces.  Also,  the  exhibition  causes  the  5 
throat  of  the  on-looker  to  close  at  the  top. 

"Poor  devil!"  said  the  colonel,  coughing  tremendously. 

"We  ought  to  send  him  to  hospital.  He's  been  man- 
handled." 

Now  the  adjutant  loved  his  rifles.    They  were  to  him  10 
as  his  grandchildren — the  men  standing  in  the  first  place. 
He  grunted  rebelliously:  "I  can  understand  an  Afghan 
stealing,  because  he's  made  that  way.    But  I  can't  under- 
stand his  crying.    That  makes  it  worse." 

The  brandy  must  have  affected  Dirkovitch,  for  he  lay  15 
back  in  his  chair  and  stared  at  the  ceiling.     There  was 
nothing  special  in  the  ceiling  beyond  a  shadow  as  of  a 
huge  black  coffin.    Owing  to  some  peculiarity  in  the  con- 
struction of  the  mess  room  this  shadow  was  always  thrown 
when  the  candles  were  lighted.     It  never  disturbed  the  20 
digestion  of  the  White  Hussars.     They  were,  in  fact, 
rather  proud  of  it. 

"Is  he  going  to  cry  all  night?"  said  the  colonel,  "or 
are  we  supposed  to  sit  up  with  Little  Mildred's  guest  until 
he  feels  better?  "  25 

The  man  in  the  chair  threw  up  his  head  and  stared  at 
the  mess.  Outside,  the  wheels  of  the  first  of  those  bidden 
to  the  festivities  crunched  the  roadway. 

"Oh,  my  God!"  said  the  man  in  the  chair,  and  every 
soul  in  the  mess  rose  to  his  feet.  Then  the  Lushkar  cap-  30 
tain  did  a  deed  for  which  he  ought  to  have  been  given 
the  Victoria  Cross — distinguished  gallantry  in  a  fight 
against  overwhelming  curiosity.  He  picked  up  his  team 
with  his  eyes  as  the  hostess  picks  up  the  ladies  at  the 


296  Rudyard  Kipling 

opportune  moment,  and  pausing  only  by  the  colonel's 
chair  to  say,  "This  isn't  our  affair,  you  know,  sir,"  led 
the  team  into  the  veranda  and  the  gardens.  Hira  Singh 
was  the  last,  and  he  looked  at  Dirkovitch  as  he  moved. 
5  But  Dirkovitch  had  departed  into  a  brandy  paradise  of 
his  own.  His  lips  moved  without  sound,  and  he  was 
studying  the  coffin  on  the  ceiling. 

'White — white  all  over,"  said  Basse t-Holmer,  the  ad- 
jutant.    "What  a  pernicious  renegade  he  must  bel     I 

10  wonder  where  he  came  from?  " 

The  colonel  shook  the  man  gently  by  the  arm,  and 
"Who  are  you?  "said  he. 

There  was  no  answer.     The  man  stared  round  the 
mess  room  and  smiled  in  the  colonel's  face.    Little  Mildred, 

15  who  was  always  more  of  a  woman  than  a  man  till  "Boot 
and  saddle"  was  sounded,  repeated  the  question  in  a  voice 
that  would  have  drawn  confidences  from  a  geyser.  The 
man  only  smiled.  Dirkovitch,  at  the  far  end  of  the  table, 
slid  gently  from  his  chair  to  the  floor.  No  son  of  Adam, 

20  in  this  present  imperfect  world,  can  mix  the  Hussars' 
champagne  with  the  Hussars'  brandy  by  five  and  eight 
glasses  of  each  without  remembering  the  pit  whence  he  has 
been  digged  and  descending  thither.  The  band  began  to 
play  the  tune  with  which  the  White  Hussars,  from  the 

25  date  of  their  formation,  preface  all  their  functions.    They 

would  sooner  be  disbanded  than  abandon  that  tune.    It 

is  a  part  of  their  system.    The  man  straightened  himself 

in  his  chair  and  drummed  on  the  table  with  his  fingers. 

"I  don't  see  why  we  should  entertain  lunatics,"  said 

30  the  colonel;  "call  a  guard  and  send  him  off  to  the  cells. 
We'll  look  into  the  business  in  the  morning.  Give  him  a 
glass  of  wine  first,  though." 

Little  Mildred  filled  a  sherry  glass  with  the  brandy  and 
thrust  it  over  to  the  man.    He  drank,  and  the  tune  rose 


The  Man  Who  Was  297 

louder,  and  he  straightened  himself  yet  more.  Then  he 
put  out  his  long-taloned  hands  to  a  piece  of  plate  opposite 
and  fingered  it  lovingly.  There  was  a  mystery  connected 
with  that  piece  of  plate  in  the  shape  of  a  spring,  which 
converted  what  was  a  seven-branched  candlestick,  three  5 
springs  each  side  and  one  in  the  middle,  into  a  sort  of 
wheel-spoke  candelabrum.  He  found  the  spring,  pressed 
it,  and  laughed  weakly.  He  rose  from  his  chair  and  in- 
spected a  picture  on  the  wall,  then  moved  on  to  another 
picture,  the  mess  watching  him  without  a  word.  When  he  10 
came  to  the  mantelpiece  he  shook  his  head  and  seemed  dis- 
tressed. A  piece  of  plate  representing  a  mounted  hussar 
in  full  uniform  caught  his  eye.  He  pointed  to  it,  and  then 
to  the  mantelpiece,  with  inquiry  in  his  eyes. 

"What  is  it — oh,  what  is  it?"  said  Little  Mildred.  15 
Then,  as  a  mother  might  speak  to  a  child,  "That  is  a 
horse — yes,  a  horse." 

Very  slowly  came  the  answer,  in  a  thick,  passionless, 
guttural:  "Yes,  I — have  seen.    But — where  is  the  horse?  " 

You  could  have  heard  the  hearts  of  the  mess  beating  20 
as  the  men  drew  back  to  give  the  stranger  full  room  in 
his  wanderings.     There  was  no  question  of  calling  the 
guard. 

Again  he  spoke,  very  slowly,  "Where  is  our  horse?  " 

There  is  no  saying  what  happened  after  that.    There  25 
is  but  one  horse  in  the  WTiite  Hussars,  and  his  portrait 
hangs  outside  the  door  of  the  mess  room.     He  is  the 
piebald  drum-horse,   the  king  of  the  regimental  band, 
that  served  the  regiment  for  seven-and-thirty  years,  and 
in  the  end  was  shot  for  old  age.    Half  the  mess  tore  the  30 
thing  down  from  its  place  and  thrust  it  into  the  man's 
hands.    He  placed  it  above  the  mantelpiece;  it  clattered 
on  the  ledge,  as  his  poor  hands  dropped  it,  and  he  staggered 
toward  the  bottom  of  the  table,  falling  into  Mildred's 


298  Rudyard  Kipling 

chair.  The  band  began  to  play  the  "River  of  Years'" 
waltz,  and  the  laughter  from  the  gardens  came  into  the 
tobacco-scented  mess  room.  But  nobody,  even  the 
youngest,  was  thinking  of  waltzes.  They  all  spoke  to 
5  one  another  something  after  this  fashion:  "The  drum- 
horse  hasn't  hung  over  the  mantelpiece  since  '67."  "How 
does  he  know?"  "Mildred,  go  and  speak  to  him  again." 
"Colonel,  what  are  you  going  to  do?"  "Oh,  dry  up, 
and  give  the  poor  devil  a  chance  to  pull  himself  together!" 

10  "It  isn't  possible,  anyhow.    The  man's  a  lunatic." 

Little  Mildred  stood  at  the  colonel's  side  talking  into 
his  ear.  "Will  you  be  good  enough  to  take  your  seats, 
please,  gentlemen?"  he  said,  and  the  mess  dropped  into 
the  chairs. 

15  Only  Dirkovitch's  seat,  next  to  Little  Mildred's,  was 
blank,  and  Little  Mildred  himself  had  found  Hira  Singh's 
place.  The  wide-eyed  mess  sergeant  filled  the  glasses  in 
dead  silence.  Once  more  the  colonel  rose,  but  his  hand 
shook,  and  the  port  spilled  on  the  table  as  he  looked 

20  straight  at  the  man  in  Little  Mildred's  chair  and  said, 
hoarsely,  "Mr.  Vice,  the  Queen."  There  was  a  little 
pause,  but  the  man  sprang  to  his  feet  and  answered, 
without  hesitation,  "The  Queen,  God  bless  her!"  and  as 
he  emptied  the  thin  glass  he  snapped  the  shank  between 

25  his  fingers. 

Long  and  long  ago,  when  the  Empress  of  India  was  a 
young  woman,  and  there  were  no  unclean  ideals  in  the  land, 
it  was  the  custom  in  a  few  messes  to  drink  the  Queen's 
toast  in  broken  glass,  to  the  huge  delight  of  the  mess 

30  contractors.    The  custom  is  now  dead,  because  there  is 

nothing  to  break  anything  for,  except  now  and  again  the 

word  of  a  government,  and  that  has  been  broken  already. 

"That  settles  it,"  said  the  colonel,  with  a  gasp.    "He's 

not  a  sergeant.    What  in  the  world  is  he?  " 


The  Man  Who  Was  299 

The  entire  mess  echoed  the  word,  and  the  volley  of 
questions  would  have  scared  any  man.  Small  wonder 
that  the  ragged,  filthy  invader  could  only  smile  and  shake 
his  head. 

From  under  the  table,  calm  and  smiling  urbanely,  rose  5 
Dirkovitch,  who  had  been  roused  from  healthful  slumber 
by  feet  upon  his  body.  By  the  side  of  the  man  he  rose, 
and  the  man  shrieked  and  groveled  at  his  feet.  It  was 
a  horrible  sight,  coming  so  swiftly  upon  the  pride  and  glory 
of  the  toast  that  had  brought  the  strayed  wits  together.  10 

Dirkovitch  made  no  offer  to  raise  him,  but  Little 
Mildred  heaved  him  up  in  an  instant.  It  is  not  good  that 
a  gentleman  who  can  answer  to  the  Queen's  toast  should 
lie  at  the  feet  of  a  subaltern  of  Cossacks. 

The   hasty   action   tore   the   wretch's   upper   clothing  15 
nearly  to  the  waist,  and  his  body  was  seamed  with  dry 
black  scars.    There  is  only  one  weapon  in  the  world  that 
cuts  in  parallel  lines,  and  it  is  neither  the  cane  nor  the 
cat.     Dirkovitch  saw  the  marks,  and  the  pupils  of  his 
eyes    dilated — also,   his   face   changed.     He   said   some-  20 
thing  that  sounded  like  "Shto  ve  takete;"  and  the  man, 
fawning,  answered,  "Chetyre." 

"What's  that?"  said  everybody  together. 

"His  number.  That  is  number  four,  you  know." 
Dirkovitch  spoke  very  thickly.  25 

"What  has  a  Queen's  officer  to  do  with  a  qualified 
number?"  said  the  colonel,  and  there  rose  an  unpleasant 
growl  round  the  table. 

"How  can  I  tell?"  said  the  affable  Oriental,  with  a 
sweet  smile.     "He  is  a — how  you  have  it? — escape —  30 
runaway,  from  over  there." 

He  nodded  toward  the  darkness  of  the  night. 

"Speak  to  him,  if  he'll  answer  you,  and  speak  to  him 
gently,"  said  Little  Mildred,  settling  the  man  in  a  chair. 


300  Rudyard  Kipling 

It  seemed  most  improper  to  all  present  that  Dirkovitch 
should  sip  brandy  as  he  talked  in  purring,  spitting  Russian 
to  the  creature  who  answered  so  feebly  and  with  such 
evident  dread.    But  since  Dirkovitch  appeared  to  under- 
5  stand,  no  man  said  a  word.    They  breathed  heavily,  lean- 
ing forward,  in  the  long  gaps  of  the  conversation.   The  next 
time  that  they  have  no  engagements  on  hand  the  White 
Hussars  intend  to  go  to  St.  Petersburg  and  learn  Russian. 
"He  does  not  know  how  many  years  ago,"  said  Dirko- 

10  vitch,  facing  the  mess,  "but  he  says  it  was  very  long 
ago,  in  a  war.  I  think  that  there  was  an  accident.  He 
says  he  was  of  this  glorious  and  distinguished  regiment  in 
the  war." 

"The  rolls!    The  rolls!    Holmer,  get  the  rolls!"  said 

15  Little  Mildred,  and  the  adjutant  dashed  off  bareheaded 
to  the  orderly  room  where  the  rolls  of  the  regiment  were 
kept.  He  returned  just  in  time  to  hear  Dirkovitch  con- 
clude, "Therefore  I  am  most  sorry  to  say  there  was  an 
accident,  which  would  have  been  reparable  if  he  had 

20  apologized  to  that  our  colonel,  which  he  had  insulted." 

Another  growl,  which  the  colonel  tried  to  beat  down. 
The  mess  was  in  no  mood  to  weigh  insults  to  Russian 
colonels  just  then. 

"He  does  not  remember,  but  I  think  that  there  was 

25  an  accident,  and  so  he  was  not  exchanged  among  the 
prisoners,  but  he  was  sent  to  another  place — how  do 
you  say? — the  country.  So,  he  says,  he  came  here.  He 
does  not  know  how  he  came.  Eh?  He  was  at  Chepany  " — 
the  man  caught  the  word,  nodded,  and  shivered — "at 

30  Zhigansk  and  Irkutsk.  I  cannot  understand  how  he 
escaped.  He  says,  too,  that  he  was  in  the  forests  for  many 
years,  but  how  many  years  he  has  forgotten — that  with 
many  things.  It  was  an  accident;  done  because  he  did  not 
apologize  to  that  our  colonel.  Ah!" 


The  Man  Who  Was  301 

Instead  of  echoing  Dirkovitch's  sigh  of  regret,  it  is  sad 
to  record  that  the  White  Hussars  livelily  exhibited  un- 
christian delight  and  other  emotions,  hardly  restrained 
by  their  sense  of  hospitality.  Holmer  flung  the  frayed 
and  yellow  regimental  rolls  on  the  table,  and  the  men  5 
flung  themselves  atop  of  these. 

"Steady!     Fifty-six—fifty-five—fifty-four,"   said  Hol- 
mer.    "Here  we  are.     'Lieutenant  Austin  Limmason — 
missing.'    That  was  before  Sebastopol.    What  an  infernal 
shame!    Insulted  one  of  their  colonels,  and  was  quietly  10 
shipped  off.    Thirty  years  of  his  life  wiped  out." 

"But  he  never  apologized.     Said  he'd  see  him  

first,"  chorused  the  mess. 

"Poor  devil!    I  suppose  he  never  had  the  chance  after- 
ward.   How  did  he  come  here?  "  said  the  colonel.  15 

The  dingy  heap  in  the  chair  could  give  no  answer. 

"Do  you  know  who  you  are?" 

It  laughed  weakly. 

"Do  you  know  that  you  are  Limmason — Lieutenant 
Limmason,  of  the  White  Hussars?  "  20 

Swift  as  a  shot  came  the  answer,  in  a  slightly  surprised 
tone,  "Yes,  I'm  Limmason,  of  course."  The  light  died 
out  in  his  eyes,  and  he  collapsed  afresh,  watching  every 
motion  of  Dirkovitch  with  terror.  A  flight  from  Siberia 
may  fix  a  few  elementary  facts  in  the  mind,  but  it  does  25 
not  lead  to  continuity  of  thought.  The  man  could  not 
explain  how,  like  a  homing  pigeon,  he  had  found  his  way 
to  his  own  old  mess  again.  Of  what  he  had  suffered  or 
seen  he  knew  nothing.  He,  cringed  before  Dirkovitch  as 
instinctively  as  he  had  pressed  the  spring  of  the  candlestick,  30 
sought  the  picture  of  the  drum-horse,  and  answered  to  the 
Queen's  toast.  The  rest  was  a  blank  that  the  dreaded  Rus- 
sian tongue  could  only  in  part  remove.  His  head  bowed 
on  his  breast,  and  he  giggled  and  cowered  alternately. 


302  Rudyard  Kipling 

The  devil  that  lived  in  the  brandy  prompted  Dirko- 
vitch  at  this  extremely  inopportune  moment  to  make  a 
speech.  He  rose,  swaying  slightly,  gripped  the  table 
edge,  while  his  eyes  glowed  like  opals,  and  began: — 

5  "Fellow-soldiers  glorious — true  friends  and  hospitables. 
It  was  an  accident,  and  deplorable — most  deplorable." 
Here  he  smiled  sweetly  all  round  the  mess.  "But  you 
will  think  of  this  little,  little  thing.  So  little,  is  it  not? 
The  czar!  Posh!  I  slap  my  fingers — I  snap  my  fingers 

10  at  him.  Do  I  believe  in  him?  No!  But  the  Slav  who  has 
done  nothing,  him  I  believe.  Seventy — how  much? — 
millions  that  have  done  nothing — not  one  thing.  Napoleon 
was  an  episode."  He  banged  a  hand  on  the  table.  "Hear 
you,  old  peoples,  we  have  done  nothing  in  the  world — out 

15  here.  All  our  work  is  to  do:  and  it  shall  be  done,  old 
peoples.  Get  away!"  He  waved  his  hand  imperiously, 
and  pointed  to  the  man.  "You  see  him.  He  is  not  good 
to  see.  He  was  just  one  little — oh,  so  little — accident, 
that  no  one  remembered.  Now  he  is  That.  So  will  you  be, 

20  brother-soldiers  so  brave — so  will  you  be.  But  you  will 
never  come  back.  You  will  all  go  where  he  has  gone, 
or" — he  pointed  to  the  great  coffin  shadow  on  the  ceiling, 
and  muttering,  "Seventy  millions — get  away,  you  old 
people,"  fell  asleep. 

25  "Sweet,  and  to  the  point,"  said  Little  Mildred. 
"What's  the  use  of  getting  wroth?  Let's  make  t^he  poor 
devil  comfortable." 

But  that  was  a  matter  suddenly  and  swiftly  taken  from 
the  loving  hands  of  the  White  Hussars.  The  lieutenant 

30  had  returned  only  to  go  away  again  three  days  later, 
when  the  wail  of  the  "Dead  March"  and  the  tramp  of 
the  squadrons  told  the  wondering  station,  that  saw  no 
gap  in  the  table,  an  officer  of  the  regiment  had  resigned 
his  new-found  commission. 


The  Man  Who  Was  303 

And  Dirkovitch — bland,  supple,  and  always  genial — 
went  away  too  by  a  night  train.  Little  Mildred  and 
another  saw  him  off,  for  he  was  the  guest  of  the  mess, 
and  even  had  he  smitten  the  colonel  with  the  open  hand 
the  law  of  the  mess  allowed  no  relaxation  of  hospitality.  5 

"Good-by,  Dirkovitch,  and  a  pleasant  journey,"  said 
Little  Mildred. 

uAu  revoir,  my  true  friends,"  said  the  Russian. 

" Indeed!    But  we  thought  you  were  going  home? " 

"Yes;  but  I  will  come  again.    My  friends,  is  that  road  10 
shut?"     He  pointed   to   where   the  north   star  burned 
over  the  Khyber  Pass. 

"By  Jove!    I  forgot.    Of  course.    Happy  to  meet  you, 
old  man,  any  time  you  like.    Got  everything  you  want, — 
cheroots,  ice,  bedding?    That's  all  right.    Well,  au  revoir,  15 
Dirkovitch." 

"Um,"  said  the  other  man,  as  the  tail-lights  of  the 
train  grew  small.  "Of — all — the — unmitigated — 

Little   Mildred   answered   nothing,   but   watched   the 
north  star,  and  hummed  a  selection  from  a  recent  bur-  20 
lesque  that  had  much  delighted  the  White  Hussars.     It 
ran: — 

"I'm  sorry  for  Mister  Bluebeard, 

I'm  sorry  to  cause  him  pain; 
But  a  terrible  spree  there's  sure  to  be  25 

When  he  comes  back  again." 


NOTES  AND  COMMENT 

WASHINGTON  IRVING 

Washington  Irving  was  born  In  New  York  City,  which  had  then  a 
population  of  about  30,000,  on  the  3rd  of  April,  1783 — a  couple  of 
weeks  before  George  Washington  announced  to  the  Continental 
Army  that  the  war  of  the  Revolution  was  ended.  He  was  set  to  read- 
ing law  in  his  sixteenth  year,  but  his  health  was  poor,  his  pecuniary 
circumstances  easy,  his  tastes  literary,  and  he  never  gave  serious 
attention  to  the  legal  profession.  At  nineteen,  he  contributed  to  his 
brother's  journal,  the  New  York  Morning  Chronicle,  a  series  of 
papers  in  the  style  of  Addison's  Spectator  essays,  signed  "Jonathan 
Oldstyle."  In  1804  he  was  sent  abroad  for  his  health,  which  was  not 
bad  enough  to  prevent  his  having  a  gay  and  adventurous  vacation 
in  France,  Italy,  and  England.  On  his  return  to  America  he  seems  to 
have  had  leisure  and  spirits  for  society,  theater-going,  and  convivial 
larks  with  his  boon  companions.  In  his  next  noticeable  effort  as  an 
author  he  again  followed  the  form  of  the  eighteenth  century  periodical 
essayists — Salmagundi,  1807.  The  promise  of  these  first  effusions  of 
his  humor  was  generously  fulfilled  in  1809  by  the  rich,  chuckling 
burlesque  of  the  Dutch  governors  of  New  Netherland  in  Knicker- 
bocker's History  of  New  York,  a  book  of  which  it  is  not  yet  proper  to 
be  ignorant.  Irving  lived  cheerfully  on  his  celebrity  and  a  share 
in  the  family  business  without  greatly  exerting  himself  till  1815, 
when  he  went  to  England  to  look  after  a  branch  of  his  brother's  com- 
mercial house  in  Liverpool.  Business  reverses  now  threw  him  upon 
his  literary  talents  for  a  livelihood.  In  1819-1820,  he  published  the 
Sketch  Book,  which  brought  him  into  honorable  comparison  with 
Addison,  Goldsmith,  and  Sterne.  He  followed  this  up  with  his 
picture  of  English  country  life  in  Bracebridge  Hall,  1822;  Tales  of  a 
Traveller,  1824;  the  Life  and  Voyages  of  Columbus,  1828;  the  Conquest 
of  Granada,  1829;  and  the  Alhambra,  1832.  He  came  home  to  America 
in  1832,  a  celebrated  author;  established  himself  in  the  following 
year  as  a  country  gentleman  at  Sunnyside  on  the  Hudson  near  Sleepy 
Hollow;  traveled  in  the  American  West;  spent  four  years  as  am- 
bassador in  Madrid;  compiled  or  edited  annals  of  the  American 
frontier;  wrote  lives  of  Goldsmith  and  Mahomet;  and  died  in  1859  on 

305 


306  Notes  and  Comment 

the  completion  of  his  five-volume  Life  of  George  Washington, — a 
"sterling,  golden-hearted"  old  bachelor  of  seventy-six. 

It  is  customary  to  say  that  Irving  was  the  first  American  to  win 
recognition  abroad  solely  on  his  literary  merits.  It  is  frequently 
added  that  he  was  not  distinctively  American.  Something  can  be 
said  in  support  of  this  position.  His  parents  were  of  English  birth; 
his  sojourn  in  England  was  long;  his  style  was  obviously  formed  on  the 
purest  English  models;  and  America  has  produced  no  second  Irving. 
He  seems  quite  unrelated  to  either  of  the  two  predominant  literature- 
producing  impulses  of  the  country.  He  is  not  of  the  New  England 
Puritans;  he  knows  nothing  of  their  sin-stricken  conscience,  their 
austerity,  their  aspiration,  their  spiritual  intensity  and  concentration; 
he  neither  acknowledges  their  sovereignty  nor  reacts  against  it.  On 
the  other  hand  he  has  nothing  in  common  with  the  pioneering, 
speculative,  material,  expansive,  insatiable,  Yankee  West.  Yet 
Irving  was  a  most  loyal  American,  and  it  was,  as  he  said,  "  the  dearest 
wish  of  his  heart  to  have  a  secure  and  cherished,  though  humble, 
corner  in  the  good  opinions  and  kind  feelings  of  his  countrymen.'* 
The  truth  of  the  matter  is  that  Irving's  spirit  and  talent  were  formed 
before  America  became  so  "distinctively"  American — when  on  the 
tavern  signs  the  cocked  hat  of  General  Washington  had  been  but 
recently  painted  above  the  ruby  face  of  King  George.  He  is  the  last 
of  the  old  colonial  gentlemen  possessed  of  leisure  and  intellectually 
well-to-do;  the  voice  of  a  society  more  hospitable  and  hearty,  of 
sounder  and  sweeter  sentiment,  more  settled,  temperate,  and  com- 
posed than  most  of  us  have  known.  If  he  writes  like  Addison,  it  is 
because  he  has,  like  Addison,  the  feelings  of  a  gentleman  and  scholar  of 
the  old  school.  He  has  the  high-bred  ease  and  simplicity  of  the  early 
Republic,  not  the  cynical  nonchalance  of  the  modern  Democracy. 
Unlike  some  of  our  later  humorists,  he  has  a  deep  love  and  veneration 
for  the  past,  and  a  poet's  delight  in  the  colors  and  shadows  and 
glamours  of  history.  He  wished  rather  to  bind  than  to  break  the 
threads  of  tradition  that  linked  the  old  times  to  the  new,  and  to  bring 
to  the  cradle  of  the  young  literature  of  America  the  godmothering 
imagination  of  Europe.  He  discovered  and  enlarged  the  roman- 
tic background  of  his  own  people.  An  American  still,  after  his 
own  rare  fashion,  with  portraits  of  Dutch  ancestors,  with  tales  of 
Spanish  voyagers,. with  Indian  legends,  and  lives  of  Revolutionary 
heroes,  he  strove  pretty  consistently — let  us  use  his  own  words — "to 
clothe  home  scenes  and  places  and  familiar  names  with  those  imagi- 
native and  whimsical  associations  so  seldom  met  with  in  our  new 


Notes  and  Comment  307 

country,  but  which  live  like  charms  and  spells  about  the  cities  of  the 
old  world,  binding  the  heart  of  the  native  inhabitant  to  his  home." 
(For  an  extended  study  of  Irving,  see  The  Life  and  Letters  of  Washing- 
ton Irving,  by  Pierre  M.  Irving.  For  briefer  treatment,  Washington 
Irving,  by  Charles  Dudley  Warner  in  the  American  Men  of  Letters 
Series,  and  Washington  Irving,  by  Henry  W.  Boynton  in  the  Riverside 
Biographical  Series.) 

RIP  VAN  WINKLE 

"Rip  Van  Winkle"  first  appeared  in  the  Sketch  Book,  1819. 

Diedrich  Knickerbocker.  This  is  the  pseudonym  under  which 
Irving  put  forth  his  burlesque  account  of  the  Dutch  settlement  of 
New  Amsterdam.  He  took  some  pains  to  give  vitality  to  this  imagina- 
tive character.  Before  the  publication  of  Knickerbocker's  History 
of  New  York  he  caused  to  be  inserted  in  the  Evening  Post  of  October  26, 
1809,  the  following  notice: 

DISTRESSING 

Left  his  lodgings  some  time  since,  and  has  not  since  been 
heard  of,  a  small  elderly  gentleman,  dressed  in  an  old  black 
coat  and  cocked  hat,  by  the  name  of  Knickerbocker.  As  there 
are  some  reasons  for  believing  he  is  not  entirely  in  his  right 
mind,  and  as  great  anxiety  is  entertained  about  him,  any 
information  concerning  him  left  either  at  the  Columbian 
Hotel,  Mulberry  street,  or  at  the  office  of  this  paper,  will 
be  thankfully  received. 

P.  S.  Printers  of  newspapers  would  be  aiding  the  cause  of 
humanity  in  giving  an  insertion  to  the  above. 

In  the  same  paper  appeared  on  November  6  a  letter  signed  "A 
Traveler,"  which  reported  that  a  person  answering  the  description 
had  been  seen  by  passengers  of  the  Albany  stage,  "resting  himself 
by  the  side  of  the  road,  a  little  above  King's  Bridge."  On  November 
16,  "Seth  Handaside,"  landlord  of  the  Columbian  Hotel,  wrote  to 
the  paper,  saying  that  nothing  satisfactory  had  been  heard  concern- 
ing the  "old  gentleman,"  but  that  the  manuscript  of  a  very  curious 
book  had  been  found  in  his  room  at  the  hotel,  which  would  be  sold 
"to  pay  off  his  bill  for  boarding  and  lodging."  On  the  6th  of  De- 
cember the  American  Citizen  announced  the  publication  of  Knicker- 
bocker's History  of  New  York',  for  further  details  of  his  life  and  death, 
see  the  prefatory  matter  included  in  the  "History." 


308 


Notes  and  Comment 


3,  18-19.  Its  chief  merit  is  its  scrupulous  accuracy.    "Many  of 
the  descendants  of  the  original  colonists,  however,  looked  at  it  with  a 
less  indulgent  eye.   This  irreverent  handling  of  th^ir  Dutch  ancestors, 
and  conversion  of  the  field  of  sober  history  into  a  region  of  comic 
romance,  was  not  to  their  taste."    P.  M.  Irving's  Life  and  Letters  of 
Washington  Irving,  Vol.  I,  p.  239.    For  G.  C.  Verplanck's  criticism 
of  the  work  before  the  New  York  Historical  Society,  see  the  same 
volume,  pp.  240-242. 

4,  6-7.  "  More  in  sorrow  than  in  anger."    Horatio's  description 
of  the  ghost,  Hamlet,  I,  ii. 

4,  13-14.  Waterloo  Medal.  This  medal  was  awarded  to  all  sur- 
vivors of  the  battle  of  Waterloo.  On  one  side  appears  the  bust  of 
the  Prince  Regent;  on  the  other,  the  name  of  Wellington  and  the 
date  of  his  great  victory,  June  18,  1815.  Presumably  it  is  the  Prince 
Regent  that  is  thus  given  "a  chance  for  immortality." 

4,  14.  Queen  Anne's  Farthing.    Dean  Swift  suggested  that  cur- 
rent history  be  commemorated  on  the  copper  coinage;  hence  the  issue 
of  the  celebrated  farthings.    "These  have  been  the  cause  of  an  ex- 
traordinary delusion  to  the  effect  that  a  very  small  number  (some  say 
three)  of  these  pieces  were  struck,  and  that  their  value  is  a  thousand 
pounds  each,  instead  of  usually  some  shillings."    See  the  article  on 
Numismatics  in  the  Encyclopedia  Britannica. 

5,  3-4.     Peter  Stuyvesant:  the  last  Dutch  governor  of  New 
Netherland,  distinguished  by  a  despotic  temper  and  a  wooden  leg 
bound  with  silver.    "This  most  excellent  governor  commenced  his 
administration  on  the  29th  of  May,  1647  ":  Knickerbocker's  History. 
For  Irving's  account  of  the  troublesome  reign  of  "Peter  the  Plead- 
strong  "  see  Books  V-VII. 

6, 16.  Siege  of  Fort  Christina.  See  Knickerbocker's  History,  Book 
VI,  Chap.  VIII.  This  chapter  contains  a  list  of  "the  sturdy  chivalry 
of  the  Hudson,"  including  the  Van  Winkles. 

9,  7.  Smoked  his  pipe  incessantly.  In  1614,  according  to  Diedrich 
Knickerbocker,  the  governor  of  Virginia  sent  a  ship  to  demand  the 
submission  of  the  Dutch  settlements  to  the  English  crown.  On  hear- 
ing this  news,  the  worthy  burghers  of  Communipaw  "were  seized  with 
such  a  panic,  that  they  fell  to  smoking  their  pipes  with  astonishing 
vehemence;  insomuch  that  they  quickly  raised  a  cloud,  which,  com- 
bining with  the  surrounding  woods  and  marshes,  completely  enveloped 
and  concealed  their  beloved  village,  and  overhung  the  fair  regions  of 
Pavonia — so  that  the  terrible  Captain  Argal  passed  on,  totally  un- 
suspicious that  a  sturdy  little  Dutch  settlement  lay  snugly  couched 


Notes  and  Comment  309 

in  the  mud,  under  cover  of  all  the  pestilent  vapor.  In  commemora- 
tion of  this  fortunate  escape,  the  worthy  inhabitants  have  continued 
to  smoke,  almost  without  intermission,  unto  this  very  day."  Book 
II,  Chap.  III. 

16,  26-28.  He  recognized  on  the  sign,  however,  the  ruby  face  of 
King  George.    This  humorous  symbol  of  political  transformation  is 
particularly  ingenious  in  that  it  indicates  at  a  single  stroke  both  the 
old  and  the  new  state  of  affairs.    It  may  have  been  suggested  to 
Irving  by  the  12  2nd  Spectator,  in  which  is  described  how  the  portrait 
of  Sir  Roger  on  the  inn-keeper's  sign-post  was  converted  at  the 
knight's  request  into  the  Saracen's  Head.    "Notwithstanding  it  was 
made  to  frown  and  stare  in  a  most  extraordinary  manner,"  says  the 
Spectator,  "I  could  still  discover  a  distant  resemblance  of  my  old 
friend." 

17,  23.  Federal  or  Democrat.    The  Federalist  Party,  of  which 
Alexander  Hamilton  and  John  Adams  were  leaders,  held  that  all 
powers  not  specifically  reserved  to  the  States  were  conferred  by  the 
Constitution  on  the  national   Government.     The   Democratic  or 
Democratic-Republican  Party,  of  which  Jefferson  was  the  leader, 
took  the  contrary  view,  insisting  upon  a  strict  limitation  of  the 
central  authority  and  the  reservation  to  the  States  of  all  powers 
not  expressly  assigned  by  the  Constitution  to  the  national  Govern- 
ment. 

18,  3-4.  A  tory!  one  opposed  to  the  Revolution  and  the  Constitu- 
tion; a  person  with  British  sympathies. 

18,  22-23.  Stony  Point:  a  fortified  promontory  on  the  west  side 
of  the  Hudson,  recaptured  from  the  British  in  July,  1779,  in  a  brilliant 
midnight  attack  led  by  General  Anthony  Wayne. 

18,  24.  Antony's  Nose.  For  the  legend  attached  to  this  nose,  see 
Knickerbocker's  History,  Book  VI,  Chap.  IV. 

20,  10-11.  A  fit  of  passion  at  a  New  England  peddler.   Knicker- 
bocker's History  has  many  passages  illustrating  the  natural  antipathy 
between  the  mercurial  temperament  of  the  New  Englanders  and  the 
phlegmatic  temperament  of  the  Dutch.    In  Book  III,  Chap.  VIII,  the 
Connecticut  Yankee  is  represented  as  a  peddler  by  instinct — "Gangs 
of  these  marauders,  we  are  told,  penetrated  into  the  New  Netherland 
settlements,  and  threw  whole  villages  into  consternation  by  their 
unparalleled  volubility,  and  their  intolerable  inquisitiveness."     In 
the  preceding  chapter,  their  hard  bargaining  is  discussed. 

21,  i.  The  historian  of  that  name.    Adrian  van  der  Donck,  Doc- 
tor of  Laws  and  Advocate  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  Holland,  came 


310  Notes  and  Comment 

to  America  in  1642.  His  account  of  New  Netherland  (written  in 
Dutch)  was  published  at  Amsterdam  in  1655. 

23,  i.  Hendrick  Hudson.  "Knickerbocker"  preserves  the  Dutch 
form  of  the  name  as  in  his  History.  In  1609  Henry  Hudson,  the 
English  explorer,  discovered  the  river  which  bears  his  name,  and 
sailed  up  it  in  the  Half-Moon  to  the  neighborhood  of  the  present  city 
of  Albany,  searching  for  a  northwest  passage  to  China. 

23,  7.  A  little  German  superstition.  Frederick  Barbarossa  (Roth- 
bart  or  Redbeard),  a  Roman  emperor  of  the  twelfth  century,  lives 
still,  according  to  the  legend,  spellbound  in  a  castle  underground. 
He  sits  on  an  ivory  throne,  and  his  fiery  beard  has  grown  through 
the  marble  table  upon  which  he  rests  his  head.  He  must  remain  in 
his  subterranean  prison  as  long  as  the  ravens  fly  about  the  mountain. 
A  poetical  rendering  of  this  "little  German  superstition"  was  made 
by  a  German  contemporary  of  Irving's,  J.  M.  F.  Riickert.  Irving 
himself  treated  a  similar  theme  in  the  "Legend  of  the  Enchanted 
Soldier,"  one  of  the  tales  of  the  Alhambra. 

NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE 

Nathaniel  Hawthorne  was  born  in  1804  into  an  old  New  England 
family  living  in  an  ancient  house  in  Salem,  Massachusetts — a  town 
famous  of  yore  for  its  persecution  of- witches,  its  sea-faring  merchants 
and  its  daring  privateers.  He  attended  school  in  Salem,  and  was  at 
Bowdoin  College  with  Longfellow  and  Franklin  Pierce  from  1821  to 
1825.  While  at  college  he  had  fixed  upon  authorship  as  his  career, 
and,  on  completing  his  course,  returned  to  his  native  town  and  shut 
himself  up  in  utmost  seclusion  for  twelve  years  to  study  and  write. 
His  first  important  book  was  the  first  series  of  Twice-Told  Tales,  1837. 
In  1839  Hawthorne  became  engaged  to  be  married.  In  the  same  year 
a  desire  to  know  something  of  active  life,  perhaps  coupled  with  a 
desire  to  increase  his  revenues,  induced  him  to  accept  an  appointment 
as  weigher  and  gauger  in  the  Boston  custom-house.  He  extended 
his  acquaintance  with  life  in  1841  by  agricultural  exercise  with  the 
social  philosophers  who  at  Brook  Farm  in  West  Roxbury  were  making 
their  celebrated  experiment  in  plain  living  and  high  thinking.  In 
1842,  he  was  happily  married;  went  to  live  in  the  Old  Manse  in  Con- 
cord, where  he  saw  as  much  of  Emerson  and  Thoreau  as  he  desired; 
and  published  a  second  series  of  Twice-Told  Tales.  In  1846  he  pub- 
lished Mosses  from  an  Old  Manse,  and  moved  to  Salem,  where  he 
was  appointed  surveyor  in  the  custom-house,  a  position  which  he 


Notes  and  Comment  311 

held  till  1849.  In  the  following  year  he  put  forth  a  masterpiece, 
The  Scarlet  Letter;  and,  having  removed  to  the  beautiful  village  of 
Lenox  in  the  Berkshire  Hills,  began  spinning  his  fancies  and  memories 
of  Salem  into  The  House  of  the  Seven  Gables.  This  second  great  New 
England  romance  appeared  in  1851,  as  did  also  The  Snow  Image, 
and  Other  Tales.  In  1852  he  returned  to  philosophic  Concord,  bought 
Bronson  Alcott's  place,  The  Wayside,  and  brought  out  The  Blithe- 
dale  Romance,  a  work  suggested  by  his  experiences  at  Brook  Farm. 
From  1853  to  1860  he  resided  abroad,  for  four  years  as  consul  at 
Liverpool.  His  last  notable  work,  The  Marble  Faun,  was  the  fruit  of 
his  sojourn  in  Italy.  Besides  the  books  mentioned,  he  produced 
several  volumes  for  children,  a  Life  of  Franklin  Pierce,  and  an 
account  of  English  life  in  Our  Old  Home;  he  left  also  for  posthumous 
publication  a  considerable  mass  of  note  book  material  and  miscella- 
neous tales  and  romances.  In  1864  he  set  out  with  his  old  friend 
Pierce  to  recuperate  his  gently  declining  health  by  a  tour  through 
Northern  New  England,  but  on  the  igth  of  May  at  Plymouth,  New 
Hampshire,  he  slipped  without  a  token  of  change  from  sleep  to  his 
final  rest. 

(See  the  life  of  Hawthorne  by  Henry  James,  English  Men  of  Letters; 
that  by  Moncure  Conway,  Great  Writers;  G.  E.  Woodberry,  American 
Men  of  Letters.  Nathaniel  Hawthorne  and  his  Wife,  by  Julian  Haw- 
thorne is  intimate  but  diffuse.) 

Hawthorne  was  a  man  of  original  insight  but  of  somewhat  re- 
stricted experience  and  sympathies.  Literally  speaking,  he  hardly 
stepped  out  of  New  England  till  the  bulk  of  his  work  was  completed; 
and  figuratively  speaking,  he  never  stepped  out  of  it.  "New  Eng- 
land," he  said,  "is  quite  as  large  a  lump  of  earth  as  my  heart  can  take 
in."  And  the  New  England  which  occupied  his  intense,  brooding,  soli- 
tary mind  was  the  spiritually  somber  and  chilly  New  England  of  the 
Puritans  and  their  descendants.  The  peculiar  fascination  of  his 
solemn  fables  is  due  in  part  to  the  careful  felicity  of  his  style.  He 
knew,  too,  how  to  avail  himself  of  all  that  was  pungent  and  coloured 
in  local  tradition  and  colonial  history:  the  glamour  of  popular  super- 
stitions, the  glow  of  the  alchemist's  furnace,  the  conjurer's  magic 
glass,  the  poisoner's  potion,  and  the  witch's  fire.  But  Hawthorne 
was  never  content  to  hold  his  readers  with  the  mere  outward  shows  of 
things.  Like  Aylmer  in  the  significant  little  story  called  "The 
Birthmark,"  he  "spiritualized  them  all,  and  redeemed  himself  from 
materialism  by  his  strong  and  eager  aspiration  towards  the  infinite. 
In  his  grasp  the  veriest  clod  of  earth  assumed  a  soul."  He  saw  in 


312  Notes  and  Comment 

each  individual  man  an  actor  in  an  ancient  and  continuous  human 
tragedy,  struggling  among  mortal  shadows  and  fitfully  illuminated 
by  eternal  light;  and  by  the  skilful  employment  of  symbol  and  alle- 
gory he  made  the  provincial  New  England  scene  the  stage  for  moral 
transactions  of  permanent  and  universal  import.  His  contemporary, 
Poe,  excelled  in  imparting  a  physical  shudder.  He  sent  a  tremor 
through  the  very  framework  of  character.  He  looked,  as  no  other 
writer  of  fiction  has  looked,  into  the  dark  places  of  the  Puritan  con- 
science. He  was  fascinated  by  the  writhings  of  the  worm  that  never 
dies.  He  found  it  difficult  to  form  contacts  with  his  fellow  men 
because  he  was  almost  wholly  engrossed  in  what  they  prefer  not  to 
communicate.  No  chronicler  of  man's  visible  adventures  with  cir- 
cumstances, he  was  the  pitiless  historian  of  surrendered  ideals, 
foiled  hopes,  covert  shames,  concealed  ugliness  and  poverty  of  spirit, 
and  all  the  serpentine  passage  and  track  of  sin  through  the  soul. 

THE  MINISTER'S  BLACK  VEIL 

"The  Minister's  Black  Veil"  was  published  as  one  of  the  first 
series  of  Twice-Told  Tales.  It  illustrates  very  well  Hawthorne's 
more  or  less  habitual  resort  to  some  external  sign  or  badge  as  a  symbol 
of  the  internal  condition  of  his  characters.  Any  one  who  is  interested 
in  the  ways  that  stories  originated  in  the  author's  mind  should  ex- 
amine the  jottings  of  story-subjects  in  Hawthorne's  note-books. 
From  these  it  appears  that  the  symbol  not  infrequently  presented 
itself  to  him  and  was  recorded  before  he  had  any  notion  of  the  mean- 
ing to  attach  to  it.  In  1838,  for  example,  he  made  this  entry:  "A 
person  to  catch  fire-flies,  and  try  to  kindle  his  household  fire  with 
them.  //  would  be  symbolical  of  something''  At  other  times  the  mean- 
ing or  moral  idea  comes  first  without  definite  image  or  symbol,  for 
example:  "Dr.  Johnson's  penance  in  Uttoxeter  Market.  A  man  who 
does  penance  in  what  might  appear  to  lookers-on  the  most  glorious 
and  triumphal  circumstance  of  his  life.  Each  circumstance  of  the 
career  of  an  apparently  successful  man  to  be  a  penance  and  torture 
to  him  on  account  of  some  fundamental  error  in  early  life."  The  idea 
of  penance,  again  symbolically  expressed,  reappears  many  years  later 
in  The  Scarlet  Letter,  which  is  perhaps  the  best  commentary  on  "The 
Minister's  Black  Veil." 

32,  29-30.  It  was  that  famous  one  where  they  tolled  the  wed- 
ding knell.  See  the  story  entitled  "The  Wedding  Knell,"  which  im- 
mediately precedes  "The  Minister's  Black  Veil"  in  the  Twice-Told 
Tries. 


Notes  and  Comment  313 


ETHAN  BRAND 

"Ethan  Brand"  was  one  of  the  results  of  Hawthorne's  stay  in 
North  Adams,  Massachusetts,  in  the  summer  and  early  fall  of  1838. 
Descriptions  of  Graylock,  the  lime-kiln,  the  lime-burner,  the  diorama 
and  the  show-man,  the  soap-boiler,  the  dog,  etc.,  appear  as  unrelated 
observations  in  the  American  Note-Books. 

43,  14.  Graylock:  a  mountain  in  Berkshire  County,  not  far  from 
North  Adams.  "Graylock,  or  Saddleback,  is  quite  a  respectable 
mountain;  and  I  suppose  the  former  name  has  been  given  to  it  be- 
cause it  often  had  a  gray  cloud,  or  lock  of  gray  mist,  upon  its  head." 
American  Note-Books — Wed.,  July  26th,  1838. 

43,  26.  Unpardonable  Sin.    The  idea  of  an  unpardonable  sin  is 
supported  by  various  passages  in  the  New  Testament,  for  example, 
Matthew  xii.  ji,  52;  "Wherefore  I  say  unto  you,  all  manner  of  sin  and 
blasphemy  shall  be  forgiven  unto  men;  but  the  blasphemy  against  the 
Holy  Ghost  shall  not  be  forgiven  unto  men.    And  whosoever  speaketh 
a  word  against  the  Holy  Ghost,  it  shall  not  be  forgiven  him,  neither 
in  this  world,  neither  in  the  world  to  come."    John  Bunyan  tells  us 
in  Grace  Abounding  that  this  doctrine  drove  many  to  despair,  and  that 
he  himself  was  afflicted  for  many  years  with  a  conviction  that  it  was 
too  late  for  him  to  look  to  Heaven — "  for  Christ  would  not  forgive  me, 
nor  pardon  my  transgressions."    The  great  American  divine  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  Jonathan  Edwards,  discusses  the  subject  in  his 
treatise  "Of  Endless  Punishment,"  and  declares  it  manifest  "that 
he  that  is  guilty  of  blasphemy  against  the  Holy  Ghost,  shall  surely 
be  damned,  without  any  deliverance  from  his  punishment,  or  end 
to  it."   The  poet  William  Cowper  thought  himself  destined  to  eternal 
punishment  because  he  had  not  imitated  the  sacrifice  of  Isaac  by 
taking  his  own  life.    The  writer  of  these  notes  knew  a  few  years  ago 
an  aged  New  England  lady  who  suffered  in  her  last  days  from  a 
belief  that  she  had  committed  the  Unpardonable  Sin. 

44,  16-17.  Shepherds  of  the  Delectable  Mountains.     "Then  I 
saw  in  my  dream,  that  the  Shepherds  had  them  to  another  place,  in  a 
bottom,  where  was  a  door  in  the  side  of  a  hill,  and  they  opened  the 
door,  and  bid  them  look  in.    They  looked  in,  therefore,  and  saw 
that  within  it  was  very  dark  and  smoky;  they  also  thought  that  they 
heard  there  a  rumbling  noise  as  of  fire,  and  a  cry  of  some  tormented, 
and  that  they  smelt  the  scent  of  brimstone.    Then  said  Christian, 
What  means  this?    The  Shepherds  told  them,  This  is  a  by-way  to 
hell."   Pilgrim's  Progress,  p.  144  (Everyman). 


314  Notes  and  Comment 

55,  2.  Diorama.    "A  mode  of  scenic  representation,  invented  by 
Daguerre  and  Bouton,  in  which  a  painting  is  seen  from  a  distance 
through  a  large  opening.     By  a  combination  of  transparent  and 
opaque  painting,  and  of  transmitted  and  reflected  light,  and  by  con- 
trivances such  as  screens  and  shutters,  much  diversity  of  scenic 
effect  is  produced."    Webster's  International. 

56,  17.  Jew  of  Nuremberg.    The  account  of  the  "Jew  of  Nurem- 
burg"  appears  to  have  been  transcribed  almost  word  for  word  from 
Hawthorne's  note-book,  but  the  diorama  man  is  there  described  as 
a  Dutchman  or  a  German. 

59,  19.  The  Idea  that  possessed  his  life.  Compare  the  opening 
speech  in  Goethe's  Faust.  Hawthorne  occupied  himself  very  much 
with  the  mischief  done  in  the  world  by  the  proud,  selfish  intellect 
that  proceeds  on  its  course  without  regard  to  social  ties  or  moral 
consequences.  Very  impressive  treatments  of  this  theme  will  be 
found  in  "Lady  Eleanore's  Mantle"  in  Twice-Told  Tales,  and  in 
"Rappaccini's  Daughter"  in  The  Old  Manse. 

EDGAR  ALLAN  POE 

Edgar  Allan  Poe  was  born  in  1809  in  Boston,  where  his  parents 
were  then  playing  at  the  Federal  Street  Theater.  Orphaned  at  the 
age  of  two,  he  was  taken  into  the  family  of  John  Allan,  a  Richmond 
tobacco  merchant,  who  gave  him  a  good  preparatory  education  in 
this  country  and  in  England,  and  in  February,  1826,  entered  him  at 
the  University  of  Virginia.  In  December  of  the  same  year  Poe 
left  the  University  with  a  brilliant  record  in  Latin  and  French  and 
gambling  debts  amounting  to  about  twenty-five  hundred  dollars. 
Between  1827  and  1833,  he  served  two  years  in  the  United  States 
Army,  attaining  the  rank  of  sergeant-major;  was  at  West  Point  for 
several  months  but  was  dismissed  in  1831  for  various  breaches  of  dis- 
cipline; and  published  collections  of  his  poems  in  Boston,  1827,  in 
Baltimore,  1829,  and  in  New  York,  1831.  In  1833,  at  the  age  of 
twenty-four,  he  made  a  beginning  of  his  career  as  a  writer  of  short 
stories  with  "A  MS.  Found  in  a  Bottle,"  for  which  he  received  a 
hundred-dollar  prize.  On  May  16,  1836,  he  married  Virginia  Clemm, 
a  delicate  child  of  thirteen,  and  he  is  said  to  have  idolized  her  till  hor 
sad  death  in  1847.  He  was  connected  editorially  with  the  Southern 
Literary  Messenger  in  Richmond,  1835-1837;  with  the  Gentleman's 
Magazine  in  Philadelphia,  1839-1840;  and  with  Graham's  Magazine, 
also  in  Philadelphia,  1841-1842.  During  his  connection  with  these 


Notes  and  Comment  315 

magazines  he  wrote  a  great  many  critical  notices  of  current  English 
and  American  poetry,  fiction,  and  drama.  While  he  resided  in 
Richmond  and  in  Philadelphia  he  also  produced  a  large  proportion 
of  his  best  short  stories,  for  examples:  "The  Shadow,"  "The  Narrative 
of  Arthur  Gordon  Pym,"  "The  Fall  of  the  House  of  Usher,"  "William 
Wilson,"  "The  Murders  in  the  Rue  Morgue,"  "The  Masque  of  the 
Red  Death,"  "The  Mystery  of  Marie  Roget,"  and  "The  Gold  Bug." 
In  1844  ne  removed  to  New  York  City,  where  he  was  associated 
with  N.  P.  Willis's  "Evening  Mirror  and  later  with  the  Broadway 
Journal,  in  which  he  carried  on  a  rather  trivial  attack  on  Longfellow. 
In  1845  ne  produced  a  great  sensation  by  the  publication  of  his  most 
celebrated  poem,  "The  Raven."  Among  the  more  notable  stories 
of  this  later  period  may  be  mentioned  "The  Purloined  Letter,"  "The 
Imp  of  the  Perverse,"  and  "The  Cask  of  Amontillado."  His  service- 
ableness  as  an  editor  and  his  creative  work  had  for  years  been  impaired 
and  interrupted  by  his  addiction  to  liquor  and  drugs,  and  he  died, 
after  an  obscure  debauch,  in  a  hospital  at  Baltimore,  on  October  7, 
1849,  m  m's  forty-first  year.  (Biographies  of  Poe:  G.  E.  W'oodberry 
in  American  Men  of  Letters;  J.  A.  Harrison's  Life  and  Letters  of  Poe; 
John  Macy  in  Beacon  Biographies.) 

Poe  has  impressed  the  world  as  one  of  the  most  original  writers  of 
America,  and  his  works  are  perhaps  more  widely  read  to-day  at  home 
and  abroad  than  those  of  any  other  American  of  his  period.  He 
passes  in  Viriginia  for  a  Southern  genius;  in  England  for  a  disciple  of 
Coleridge;  in  France,  where  he  has  been  extraordinarily  popular,  for 
a  Gallic  spirit;  and  in  Germany  for  a  Germanic  follower  of  Hoffmann. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  he  has  no  clear  local,  sectional,  or  national  note. 
His  fiction  is  rooted  neither  in  history  nor  in  the  manners,  morals 
and  characters  of  his  contemporaries.  His  home  is  in  the  shifting 
dream-world  of  the  romantic  imagination,  where  Italy,  Libya, 
Germany,  India,  and  England  float  on  the  stream  of  revery,  where 
misty  turrets,  castellated  abbeys,  and  gray  hereditary  halls  tower  for 
a  moment  like  cloud  palaces,  congregate  into  dim,  decaying  cities, 
and  dissolve  again  into  the  Valley  of  the  Many-Colored  Grass  or  the 
ghoul-haunted  woodland  of  Weir.  The  peculiar  power  of  his  work 
results,  as  he  himself  recognized,  from  the  union  in  him  of  the  syn- 
thetic and  the  analytic  faculties;  he  was  at  the  same  time  a  poet  and 
a  mathematician,  a  dreamer  and  a  psychologist,  a  moody  visionary 
and  a  keen,  directive  intelligence.  As  a  poet — in  verse  or  in  prose — 
he  harps  with  subtly  hypnotic  refrains  and  magical  cadences  upon 
eerie  love,  strange  forms  of  madness,  and  horrible  death  in  scenes  of 


316  Notes  and  Comment 

enchanting  melancholy  and  ruinous  splendor.  As  an  analytic  in- 
telligence, he  exhibits  a  marvellous  acuteness  in  solving  the  mysteries 
of  crime,  discovering  purloined  letters  and  buried  treasure,  and  in 
deciphering  cryptograms.  When  his  "  ratiocinative"  faculty  has 
the  upper  hand,  he  invents  the  detective  story  and  creates  M.  Dupin, 
the  father  of  our  industriously  ingenious  contemporary,  Sherlock 
Holmes.  When  the  poetic  faculty  predominates,  he  gives  us  in  a 
tale  of  ten  pages  the  quintessence  of  a  three-volume  gothic  romance 
of  our  forefathers,  like  Mrs.  Radcliffe's  Mysteries  of  Udolpho.  In  his 
finest  stories  the  "poetic  madness"  is  controlled  by  an  exacting 
method,  which  he  explained  in  several  striking  and  extremely  in- 
fluential critical  articles.  His  subject-matter  is  frequently  unwhole- 
some and  generally  unimportant,  but  both  by  practice  and  precept 
he  contributed  greatly  to  the  development  of  the  short  story  into  a 
definite  literary  form. 

THE  FALL  OF  THE  HOUSE  OF  USHER 

"The  Fall  of  the  House  of  Usher"  first  appeared  in  Burton's 
Gentleman's  Magazine  in  September,  1839.  Most  of  the  following 
notes  are  intended  to  emphasize  the  oddness  and  ambiguity  of  the 
books  in  Usher's  library.  It  has  been  pointed  out  by  various  critics 
that  Poe  is  frequently  not  acquainted  with  the  learned  works  which 
he  mentions  in  his  writings  with  an  air  of  easy  familiarity;  and  on 
that  ground  he  has  been  charged  with  affectation  and  vanity.  In  the 
case  of  his  critical  writings  the  charge  made  may  be  fairly  sustained. 
In  the  case  before  us,  however,  it  is  clear  that  Usher's  books  are  not 
mentioned  to  display  Poe's  learning,  but  to  illustrate  Usher's  char- 
acter, and,  in  a  rather  indefinable  fashion,  to  enrich  the  "atmosphere" 
of  the  story. 

73,  14.  Von  Weber:  C.  M.  F.  E.  Von  Weber  (1786-1826),  Ger- 
man musical  composer.  His  most  famous  works  are  Der  Freischutz, 
Euryanthe  and  Oberon. 

73,  29.  Fuseli.  Henry  Fuseli  (1741-1825)  was  born  in  Switzerland 
but  went  to  England  in  1763,  and  with  the  encouragement  of  Sir 
Joshua  Reynolds  devoted  hfmself  to  art.  Like  his  friend  William 
Blake,  he  was  greatly  influenced  by  the  work  of  Michelangelo;  and 
like  Blake  he  delighted  especially  in  painting  strange,  terrible,  and 
supernatural  subjects. 

76,15.  Sentience  of  all  vegetable  things.  The  analogies  between 
the  animal  world  and  the  vegetable  world  and  the  "sentience  of  all 


Notes  and  Comment  317 

vegetable  things" —  a  notion  which  attracted  much  scientific  attention 
in  the  eighteenth  century — were  poetically  elaborated  by  Erasmus 
Darwin  in  The  Loves  of  the  Plants,  1789. 

76,  18.  Kingdom  of  inorganization.     The  world  of  inorganic 
matter. 

77,  9.  Gresset.    Jean  Baptiste  Louis  Cresset  (1709-1777)  was  a 
French  poet  and  dramatist,  educated  by  the  Jesuits  of  Amiens. 
Vert-vert  and  La  Chartreuse  are  humorous  poems  dealing  with  the  life 
of  convent  and  monastery. 

77,  10.  Machiavelli.  Niccolo  Machiavelli  (1459-1527)  was  a  fa- 
mous Italian  statesman,  historian,  and  dramatist.  Belphegor  is  a 
novel  satirizing  marriage. 

77,  10.  Swedenborg.  Emanuel  Swedenborg  (1688-1772)  was  a 
Swedish  administrator,  scientist,  philosopher,  and  mystical  theolo- 
gian. His  treatise  "Heaven  and  its  Wonders,  the  World  of  Spirits,  and 
Hell"  gives  a  visionary  account  of  the  spiritual  world.  His  works  en- 
joyed a  good  deal  of  favor  in  Poe's  time  among  the  transcendentalists 
in  England  and  in  America.  See  Emerson's  essay  on  Swedenborg  in 
Representative  Men. 

77,  ii.  Holberg.  Ludvig  Holberg  (1684-1754)  is  called  the 
founder  of  Danish  literature.  He  wrote  copiously  on  a  great  variety 
of  subjects,  historical,  legal,  philosophical,  and  literary.  In  the 
English-speaking  world  he  is  thought  of  chiefly  as  a  dramatist.  "The 
Subterranean  Voyage  of  Nicholas  Klimm"  is  a  poem  originally  written 
in  Latin. 

77,  12.  Robert  Flud:  an  English  physician  and  mystical  philoso- 
pher (1574-1637),  indebted  to  Paracelsus,  and  holding  beliefs  related 
in  a  general  way  to  those  of  Swedenborg.  His  works  were  collected 
in  six  volumes,  1638. 

77, 12.  Jean  D'Indagine.  D'Indagine,  Flud,  and  De  la  Chambre 
are  all  mentioned  as  authorities  in  the  article  on  chiromancy  in 
Diderot's  Encyclopedic: 

77,  13.  De  la  Chambre:  French  physician,  man  of  letters, 
Academician  (c.  1594-1669).  He  published  in  1653  his  Discours 
sur  les  principes  de  la  chiromancie. 

77,  14.  Tieck.  Johann  Ludwig  Tieck  (1773-1853)  was  a  German 
poet,  critic,  novelist,  and  writer  of  short  stories.  He  was  a  leader  in 
Germany  of  the  romantic  movement,  with  which  Poe  is  sympathetic. 
"The  Journey  into  the  Blue  Distance  "  (Das  alte  Buck  und  die  Reise 
ins  Blaue  hinein)  was  published  in  1835. 

77,  14.  Campanella.    Tommaso  Campanella  (1568-1639)  was  a 


318  Notes  and  Comment 

philosopher  of  the  Italian  Renaissance.  His  City  of  the  Sun  (Civitas 
Soils)  is  an  account  of  an  ideal  commonwealth,  inspired  by  Plato's 
Republic. 

77, 16.  Eymeric  de  Gironne:  a  Spanish  canonist  of  the  fourteenth 
century  (1320-1399).  He  was  appointed  inquisitor-general  of  Aragon 
and  was  a  zealous  hunter  of  heretics.  He  wrote  various  works  of 
piety  and  theology,  but  his  most  celebrated  work  is  the  account  of 
the  rules  and  procedure  of  the  Inquisition,  mentioned  in  the  text. 

77,  17.  Pomponius  Mela.  Pomponius  Mela  was  a  Roman  geog- 
rapher who  flourished  in  the  first  century  of  the  Christian  era.    His 
description  of  the  earth — De  Situ  Orbis — was  translated  into  English 
by  Arthur  Golding  in  1585. 

78,  18.  Worst  purposes  of  donjon-keep:  to  torture  captives  or 
to  imprison  them  and  leave  them  to  starve  to  death. 

82,  2.  Sir  Launcelot  Canning.  Apparently  this  author  was  in- 
vented by  Poe. 

THE  GOLD-BUG 

"The  Gold-Bug"  was  first  published  as  a  prize  story  in  the  Phila- 
delphia Dollar  Newspaper  in  June,  1843. 

Bitten  by  the  Tarantula.  According  to  an  ancient  popular  su- 
perstition, the  bite  of  the  tarantula  produced  in  the  victim  a  peculiar 
dancing  mania.  The  application  is  of  course  to  the  supposed  lunacy 
of  Legrand  in  consequence  of  the  bite  of  the  gold-bug. 

87, 16.  Fort  Moultrie.  Poe  was  at  Fort  Moultrie  in  the  fall  of  1827 
as  a  member  of  Battery  H  of  the  First  Artillery. 

88,  12.  In  quest  of  shells.  A  few  years  before  the  publication 
of  "  The  Gold-Bug,"  Poe  had  interested  himself  in  "shells"  in  prepa- 
ration for  his  not  entirely  creditable  compilation,  The  Conchologist's 
First  Book,  1839.  See  G.  E.  Woodberry's  Edgar  Allan  Poe,  pp.  m- 
113- 

88,  14.  Swammerdamm.  Jan  Swammerdamm  (1637-1680)  was  a 
Dutch  naturalist.  His  Biblia  naturae,  sive  Historia  insectorum  in 
certas  classes  redacta  was  published  1737-1738. 

91,  16.  Caputhominis:  "man's  head." 

96,  12.  Empressement:  "eagerness." 

118,  7.  Captain  Kidd.  William  Kidd  was  born  about  1645, 
probably  in  Scotland.  He  was  commissioned  to  go  in  pursuit  of  hostile 
privateers  and  pirates,  but  he  turned  pirate  himself,  and  was  hanged 
at  Execution  Dock,  London,  in  1701.  Treasure  amounting  to  about 
$70,000  was  found  in  his  ship  and  on  Gardiner's  Island,  N.  Y. 


Notes  and  Comment  319 

120,  1 6.  Golconda:  a  ruined  city  of  India  associated  by  literary 
reference  with  jewels  of  fabulous  value. 

120,  30.  I  have  solved  others.     Poe  ran  a  puzzle  column  in  Alex- 
ander's Weekly  Messenger,  in  which  he  undertook  to  solve  any  crypto- 
graph that  was  sent  in  to  him.    He  says  that  "out  of,  perhaps,  one 
hundred  ciphers  altogether  received,  there  was  only  one  which  we  did 
not  immediately  succeed  in  resolving.    This  one  we  demonstrated  to 
be  an  imposition."    In  Graham's  Magazine,  July,  1841,  he  reopened 
the  discussion  of  cryptographs  with  an  article  on  "Secret  Writing" 
and  repeated  his  challenge.     "It  may  be  observed,  generally,"  he 
says,  "that  in  such  investigations  the  analytic  ability  is  very  forcibly 
called  into  action;  and,  for  this  reason,  cryptographical  solutions 
might  with  great  propriety  be  introduced  into  academies  as  the  means 
of  giving  tone  to  the  most  important  of  the  powers  of  mind."    See 
Vol.  xiv,  pp.  114-149  in  J.  A.  Harrison's  Complete  Works  of  Poe. 

121,  18-19.  The  Spanish  Main.    The  Caribbean  Sea  and  adjacent 
coast, — the  resort  of  pirates  lying  in  wait  for  treasure  and  merchant 
vessels  from  South  American  ports. 

CHARLES  DICKENS 

Dickens  was  born  in  Portsea,  February  7th,  1812,  and  spent  some 
years  of  his  childhood  in  Chatham;  but  he  was  brought  to  London 
while  still  a  young  boy  and  grew  up  there.  His  father — an  optimistic 
ne'er-do-well,  frequently  in  prison  for  debt — loved  and  neglected 
him.  Dickens's  rich  but  irregular  education  was  derived  from  a 
collection  of  eighteenth  century  novels,  a  few  years  schooling,  and 
the  experiences  of  life.  As  a  child  he  had  lived  within  touch  of 
ships,  sailors,  and  the  sea.  As  a  drudge  in  a  blacking  warehouse  in 
the  most  wretched  days  -of  his  youth,  he  knew  poverty  and  hunger 
and  the  inmates  and  aspects  of  slums,  pawn-shops,  and  prisons.  As 
a  clerk  in  law-offices,  1827-8,  he  became  acquainted  with  courts, 
pettifoggers,  and  their  clients,  and  the  tedious  processes  of  the  law. 
Then  he  learned  shorthand  and  made  himself,  as  he  declared,  "the 
best  and  most  rapid  reporter  ever  known":  his  newspaper  work 
sent  him  to  every  nook  and  corner  of  London  and  perhaps  to  nearly 
every  town  in  England.  In  1833  he  began  to  write  for  the  periodicals 
papers  which  were  collected  and  published  in  1835  and  1836  as 
Sketches  by  Boz.  In  1836  he  married  the  daughter  of  one  of  his 
newspaper  friends,  and  in  that  year  commenced  the  triumphantly 
successful  monthly  publication  of  the  Papers  of  the  Pickwick  Club. 


320  Notes  and  Comment 

While  the  Pickwick  papers  were  running,  he  set  to  work  on  his  first 
novel,  Oliver  Twist,  1837-8,  and  before  that  was  completed,  plunged 
into  Nicholas  Nickleby,  1838-9.  From  1840  to  1841  he  ran  in  weekly 
numbers  Master  Humphrey's  Clock,  containing  The  Old  Curiosity 
Shop  and  Barnaby  Rudgc.  Now  at  the  age  of  thirty  an  enormously 
popular  author  on  both  sides  of  the  Atlantic,  he  made  in  1842  a  trip 
to  America,  where  he  was  banqueted  from  Boston  to  St.  Louis. 
On  his  return  he  published  a  book  of  travel,  American  Notes,  1842, 
and  in  1843-4  Martin  Chuzzlewit,  a  great  English  novel  with  a  long 
satirical  American  digression.  Some  of  his  more  important  subse- 
quent works  are:  Dombey  and  Son,  1846-8;  his  "autobiographical" 
novel,  David  Copperfield,  1849-50;  Bleak  House,  1852-3;  Hard  Times, 
1854;  A  Tale  of  Two  Cities,  1859;  Great  Expectations,  1860-1;  Our 
Mutual  Friend,  1864-5.  As  editor,  lecturer,  and  author  he  toiled 
with  remorseless  industry  and  at  a  high  pitch  of  excitement  almost 
till  his  death  in  1870.  (There  are  innumerable  books  on  Dickens. 
The  standard  biography  is  by  John  Forster.  The  most  stimulating 
criticism  of  recent  years  is  G.  K.  Chesterton's  Charles  Dickens,  1906. 
F.  G.  Kitten's  Charles  Dickens,  1908,  contains  some  fresh  biographical 
material.) 

The  field  of  Dickens's  fiction  was  wide  but  not  unlimited.  For  the 
most  part  he  left  aristocratic  and  fashionable  society  to  Disraeli  and 
Bulwer  Lytton;  the  clergy,  high  and  low,  to  Trollope  and  Kingsley; 
the  upper  middle  class  to  Thackeray;  the  learned  and  the  rural  pop- 
ulation to  George  Eliot  and  the  Brontes.  A  hearty,  liberal  English- 
man of  what  he  would  have  called  the  lower  middle  class,  Dickens 
explored  with  especial  gusto  the  lively,  little-cultivated,  impecunious 
masses  of  the  urban  population,  which  were  in  his  time  beginning  to 
make  themselves  felt  as  a  new  force  in  politics.  After  one  has  read 
a  dozen  of  his  works,  the  scenes  of  the  various  novels  insensibly  dove- 
tail in  one's  memory  into  a  great  grimy,  dusty,  musty,  foggy, "  smelly" 
city  through  which  a  grey  river  creeps  by  sombre  warehouses,  curious 
shops,  dingy  lodgings,  and  twinkling  taverns  to  the  sea.  So,  too, 
the  quaint  and  grotesque  characters,  figures  of  incredible  virtue  and 
impossible  vice— the  Wellers  and  Pickwicks  and  Nells  and  Dombeys 
and  Micawbers  and  Gradgrinds  and  Gamps  and  Fagins  and  Pecksniffs 
— break  from  the  covers  in  which  their  author  confined  them,  and 
revel  together  in  the  imagination  in  a  magnificent  low  comedy  di- 
versified with  melodrama  and  interludes  of  happy  poverty  feasting 
on  toast  and  tea  in  cosy  parlors  "warm  and  bright  with  fire  and 
candle."  This  is  to  say  that  Dickens  was  not  primarily  a  writer  of 


Notes  and  Comment  321 

short  stories.  He  did,  indeed,  throw  off  a  number  of  effective  short 
narratives  like  the  "  Christmas  Carol,"  "  Dr.  Marigold,"  and  "  The 
Boots  at  the  Holly -Tree  Inn;  but  many  of  the  briefer  pieces  which 
he  fed  to  his  magazines — for  instance  "  The  Wreck  of  the  Golden 
Mary" — are  brief  only  because  he  had  not  time  to  make  them  lengthy. 
Dickens  did  not  much  care  for  the  single,  foreordained,  and  cunningly 
contrived  "effect"  for  which  Poe  strove.  "The  Signal-Man"  is  an  ex- 
ception, but  it  has  little  mark  of  its  author's  peculiar  genius.  Dickens 
had,  so  to  speak,  a  "serial"  imagination;  he  created  a  group  of  char- 
acters, fell  in  love  with  them,  and  ran  after  them  to  see  what  they  were 
going  to  do  next.  He  violated  all  the  sacred  "unittes"  as  recklessly 
and  as  successfully  as  an  Elizabethan  dramatist. 

THE  SIGNAL-MAN 

"The  Signal-Man"  first  appeared  in  1866  in  Dickens's  weekly 
miscellany,  All  the  Year  Round.  This  was  preceded  by  another  short 
story  called  "The  Trial  for  Murder."  To  the  same  periodical  Dickens 
had  contributed  in  1859  two  chapters  of  a  ghostly  series  called  The 
Haunted  House:  "The  Mortals  in  the  House"  and  "The  Ghost,  in 
Master  B.'s  Room."  In  the  period  in  which  these  stories  were  written 
there  was  a  wide-spread  revival  of  interest  in  occult  phenomena. 
Mesmerism  and  spiritualism  seemed  in  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth 
century  to  be  laying  new  bases  for  belief  in  the  immaterial  world. 
Philosophers  and  men  of  science,  who  had  long  been  in  the  habit  of 
scoffing  at  apparitions,  founded  in  1882  the  Society  for  Psychical 
Research  for  the  express  purpose  of  exploring  the  undiscovered  country 
of  phantasms. 

FRANK  STOCKTON 

"Frank"  (Francis  Richard)  Stockton  was  born  April  5,  1834,  in 
Philadelphia,  and  was  a  graduate  of  the  Philadelphia  Central  High 
School.  His  first  intention  was  to  study  medicine;  for  several  years 
he  worked  at  wood  engraving;  and,  although  he  was  early  a  contrib- 
utor to  juvenile  magazines,  he  was  nearly  forty  before  he  made 
writing  his  profession.  The  turning-point  in  his  career  was  1872. 
In  that  year  he  joined  the  staff  of  the  Philadelphia  Morning  Post, 
had  a  story— "  Stephen  Skarridge's  Christmas"— accepted  by  Scrib- 
ner's  Monthly,  and  established  himself  in  New  York.  From  1872 
to  1882  he  was  associated  successively  with  Hearth  and  Home,  Scrib- 
ner's  Monthly,  and  St.  Nicholas.  After  about  ten  years  of  onice- 


322  Notes  and  Comment 

work,  finding  that  he  could  depend  upon  a  good  income  from  his  pen, 
he  gave  up  his  editorial  position.  He  continued  to  spend  part  of 
each  winter  in  New  York,  where  he  took  pleasure  in  society  and  club 
life;  but  he  bought  a  country  place  in  New  Jersey,  where  he  could 
keep  chickens  and  "two  cows,"  and  could  dictate  his  tales  to  a 
stenographer  while  lying  at  his  ease  in  a  hammock  in  a  grove  of  fir- 
trees.  Three  years  before  his  death,  which  occurred  in  1902,  he 
acquired  a  fine  estate  in  West  Virginia,  once  owned  by  George  Wash- 
ington. Among  his  more  popular  volumes  are:  Rudder  Grange,  1879; 
The  Lady,  or  the  Tiger?  and  Other  Stories,  1884;  The  Bee-Man  of  Orn 
and  Other  Fanciful  Tales,  1887;  The  Squirrel  Inn,  1891;  The  Watch- 
maker's Wife  and  Other  Stories,  1892;  The  Adventures  of  Captain  Horn, 
1895;  and  The  Great  Stone  of  Sardis,  1897.  Nine  of  his  best  short 
stories  were  collected  in  1895  in  a  volume  called  A  Chosen  Few. 
(A  memorial  sketch  of  Stockton  by  his  wife  appears  in  The  Captain's 
Toll-gate,  1903.) 

Stockton  was  a  voluminous  but  insubstantial  author,  and  it  may  be 
said  in  general  that  the  longer  his  stories  are  the  less  there  is  in  them. 
The  Casting  Away  of  Mrs.  Leeks  and  Mrs.  Aleshine,  which  runs  just 
under  a  hundred  pages,  is  excellent  fooling  vitalized  by  the  sturdy 
reality  of  the  two  good  women  in  the  title.  The  Squirrel  Inn  becomes 
only  mildly  amusing  some  time  before  one  reaches  page  222.  But  one 
must  be  very  idle  indeed  to  reach  the  347th  page  of  The  Captain's 
Toll-gate.  As  a  novelist,  Stockton  is  a  midsummer-afternoon  trifler. 
His  plots  are  flimsy  daydreams,  most  of  his  characters  are  creaking 
puppets,  and  his  setting  is  stage  land,  smelling  of  the  paint.  He  steers, 
for  the  most  part,  on  a  strange  diagonal  between  realism  and  ro- 
mance in  quest  of  laughter.  But  though  an  extended  cruise  among 
his  extravagant  improbabilities  is  tedious,  a  short  one  is  exhilarating. 
His  playful  humor  and  fantastic  imagination  are  at  their  best  in 
the  loosely  connected  sketches  of  Rudder  Grange,  in  the  pure  wonder 
tales  of  the  Bee  Man  of  Orn,  and  in  a  chosen  few  of  his  short  stories, 
such  as  "The  Lady,  or  the  Tiger?"  "Asaph,"  "His  Wife's  Deceased 
Sister,"  "The  Remarkable  Wreck  of  the  ' Thomas  Hyke,'"  and  "The 
Transferred  Ghost." 

THOMAS  HARDY 

Thomas  Hardy  was  born  on  June  2,  1840,  in  Dorsetshire,  that 
county  in  southern  England  where  he  has  passed  the  better  part  of 
his  life.  After  an  education  in  the  local  schools  and  attendance  on 


Notes  and  Comment  323 

evening  classes  at  King's  College,  London,  he  was  articled,  in  1856, 
to  an  ecclesiastical  architect  of  Dorchester.  For  several  years  he 
devoted  most  of  his  time  to  measuring  and  drawing  old  country 
churches  and  working  on  Gothic  architecture.  In  1863  he  won  medals 
offered  by  the  Royal  Institute  of  British  Architects  and  the  Ar- 
chitectural Association.  In  these  earlier  days  his  writing  was  chiefly 
in  verse,  but  somewhere  about  his  twenty-seventh  year  he  began 
practice  in  prose,  and  in  1871  published  his  first  novel.  In  1874  he 
was  married.  Since  1871  his  literary  activity  has  been  continuous. 
He  has  collected  his  verse  in  Wessex  Poems,  1898,  and  Poems  of  the 
Past  and  the  Present,  1901,  and  has  also  published  a  dramatic  trilogy 
on  the  Napoleonic  wars,  The  Dynasts,  1904-1908.  His  longer  novels 
are:  Desperate  Remedies,  1871;  Under  the  Greenwood  Tree,  1872;  A 
Pair  of  Blue  Eyes,  1872-3;  Far  from  the  Madding  Crowd,  1874; 
The  Hand  of  Ethelberta,  1876;  The  Return  of  the  Native,  1878;  The 
Trumpet  Major,  1879;  -^  Laodicean,  1880-1;  Two  on  a  Tower, 
1882;  The  Mayor  of  Casterbridge,  1884-5;  The  Woodlanders,  1886-7; 
Tess  of  the  D'Urbervilles,  1891;  The  Well-Beloved,  1892;  Jude  the 
Obscure,  1895.  The  following  volumes  contain  tales  and  short 
stories:  Wessex  Tales,  1888;  A  Group  of  Noble  Dames,  1891;  Life's 
Little  Ironies,  1894;  A  Changed  Man,  1913.  (See  Lionel  Johnson's 
The  Art  of  Thomas  Hardy,  1894,  and  Annie  Macdonell's  Thomas 
Hardy,  1894.) 

Thomas  Hardy's  life  and  works  are  rooted  deep  in  the  soil  of  his 
native  Dorsetshire,  called  Wessex  in  the  novels,  which  already,  in 
recognition  of  the  glamour  that  he  has  created  about  it,  is  beginning 
to  be  known  as  the  "Hardy  country."  With  a  sense  of  the  pressure 
of  antiquity  in  the  present  hour,  he  has  constantly  opened  in  his 
tales  backward  vistas  which  send  the  reader's  imagination  wander- 
ing past  medieval  cathedrals,  Saxon  villages,  relics  of  the  Roman 
occupation,  and  the  grim  Druidic  ruins  of  Stonehenge  into  the  dusky 
pre-Celtic  Britain  of  the  Stone  Age.  He  is  intimately  acquainted 
with  his  countryside:  paints  with  marvellous  power  sheep-cote, 
grange,  hamlet,  cathedral  town,  harvest  field,  rich  vales  and  slow 
rivers,  brown  woods,  bleak  hills,  and  barren  heath;  is  extremely 
sensitive  to  the  changes  in  the  face  of  Nature  from  season  to  season 
and  profoundly  impressed  by  her  permanence  from  age  to  age.  His 
favorite  types  of  character  may  be  roughly  classified  as  follows: 
substantial  yeomen  and  humorous,  half-pagan,  garrulous  peasants 
with  the  soil  clinging  to  them,  like  the  gravediggers  in  Hamlet;  half- 
trained  young  men  and  women  with  a  bit  of  talent  and  touch  of 


324  Notes  and  Comment 

aspiration  who  have  been  in  the  city  and  had  a  taste  of  modern  civil- 
ization; lonely  and  perilously-lovely  romantic  heroines  without  an  idea 
in  their  heads  and  with  nothing  to  do  but  to  wreck  the  lives  of  the 
young  men  in  the  preceding  group.  Hardy's  central  theme  is  passion- 
ate love  thwarted  and  brought  to  disastrous  issue  by  a  conspiracy 
of  the  accidents  in  nature  and  the  imperfections  in  man.  He  has  a 
singular  power  of  making  the  ruin  of  a  milkmaid  appear  ordained 
from  the  foundation  of  the  world,  and  as  tragically  significant  as  the 
fall  of  a  king  or  queen  of  Pelops'  line.  No  other  English  novelist 
of  his  eminence  has  commented  upon  life  with  such  bitter  irony, 
with — as  happy,  healthy  young  people  say — such  atrocious  pessi- 
mism. It  is  also  true  that  no  other  novelist  has  meditated  so  gravely, 
so  steadily,  upon  the  sadness  of  the  human  lot.  His  best  novels  have 
a  kind  of  dramatic  symmetry  and  clearness  of  structure.  His  vo- 
cabulary is  extraordinarily  rich  and  concrete,  and  he  uses  words  with 
poetic  tact,  yet  his  style  is  true  prose  of  a  high  order — pure,  lucid, 
soberly  beautiful.  His  short  stories  have  in  general  the  essential 
qualities  of  his  longer  works. 

THE  THREE  STRANGERS 

"The  Three  Strangers"  was  first  published  in  1883,  and  was  in- 
cluded in  Wessex  Tales,  1888.  In  this  volume  is  a  second  tale,  "The 
Withered  Arm,"  also  presenting  a  rural  hangman.  Mr.  Hardy  in  a 
preface  written  in  1896  speaks  of  the  child-like  fascination  exerted 
by  this  gruesome  calling  upon  the  imaginations  of  his  Wessex  peasants. 
"In  the  neighborhood  of  country-towns,"  he  says,  "tales  of  executions 
used  to  form  a  large  proportion  of  the  local  traditions;  .  .  .  the  writer 
of  these  pages  had  as  a  boy  the  privilege  of  being  on  speaking  terms 
with  a  man  who  applied  for  the  office  [of  executioner!,  and  who  sank 
into  an  incurable  melancholy  because  he  failed  to  get  it,  some  slight 
mitigation  of  his  grief  being  to  dwell  upon  striking  episodes  in  the 
lives  of  those  happier  ones  who  had  held  it  with  success  and  renown." 

The  reader  can  hardly  fail  to  be  impressed  with  the  fact  that  the 
escape  of  the  first  stranger  from  the  clutches  of  the  law  is  represented 
as  a  satisfactory  event.  As  Hardy  puts  it  in  the  story,  "the  sym- 
pathy of  a  great  many  country-folk  in  that  district  was  strongly  on 
the  side  of  the  fugitive."  We  cannot  know  exactly  to  what  extent 
Hardy  himself  is  in  sympathy  with  the  country-folk;  but  it  is  certain 
that  in  many  of  his  works  he  has  made  much  of  the  contrast  between 
the  unyielding  rigor  of  law  and  the  severity  of  organized  public  opinion 

k 


Notes  and  Comment  325 

on  the  one  hand,  and  the  tolerance  and  natural  kindliness  of  his 
uneducated  peasants  on  the  other.  The  student  interested  in  this 
aspect  of  Hardy's  work  should  read  the  last  of  the  Wessex  Tales, 
called  "The  Distracted  Minister,"  a  characteristic  and  delightfully 
ironical  story  in  which  a  minister  of  the  gospel  is  brought  into  very 
sympathetic  relations  with  smugglers  of  liquor. 

157,  1 6.  Timon:  the  misanthropist  of  Athens.  See  Shakespeare's 
Timon  of  Athens  and  Plutarch's  life  of  Mark  Antony.  It  is  a  charac- 
teristic note  of  Hardy's  art,  by  such  light  touches  as  the  allusion  to 
Timon  and  Nebuchadnezzar,  to  invite  the  reader  to  associate  the 
Wessex  stories  with  the  oldest  pages  of  human  history. 

157,  16.  Nebuchadnezzar:  King  of  Babylon;  see  Daniel  iv. 

157,  17.  Less  repellent  tribe  .  .  .  who  "conceive  and  medi- 
tate of  pleasant  things." 

Mr.  Hardy  has  not  much  in  common  with  this  "tribe."  There  is 
a  peculiar  originality  in  his  attitude  towards  external  nature.  He 
looks  with  a  kind  of  somber  rejoicing  upon  the  barren  and  waste 
places  of  the  earth  as  in  harmony  with  the  somber  destiny  of  men. 
The  fullest  and  most  eloquent  expression  that  he  has  given  to  this 
idea  is  in  the  first  chapter  of  his  great  novel,  The  Return  of  the  Native. 
In  the  course  of  his  description  there  of  Egdon  Heath  he  says:  "Hu- 
man souls  may  find  themselves  in  closer  and  closer  harmony  with  ex- 
ternal things  wearing  a  somberness  distasteful  to  our  race  when  it 
was  young.  The  time  seems  near,  if  it  has  not  actually  arrived,  when 
the  chastened  sublimity  of  a  moor,  a  sea,  or  a  mountain  will  be  all 
of  nature  that  is  absolutely  in  keeping  with  the  moods  of  the  more 
thinking  among  mankind."  Everyone  who  wishes  to  know  Hardy 
at  his  best  should  read  the  first  chapter,  and,  indeed  the  entire  book. 

158, 1 6.  Senlac  and  Crecy.  The  last  resistance  of  the  English  un- 
der Harold  at  the  battle  of  Senlac,  1066,  was  overcome  by  a  shower  of 
Norman  arrows  shot  into  the  air  and  falling  on  the  heads  and  faces  of 
the  foe.  In  the  battle  of  Crecy,  1346,  Edward  III  won  the  victory 
by  the  skilful  employment  of  his  Englishmen  with  the  long-bow 
against  the  French  cavalry. 

159,  1 2-13.  "  Like  the  laughter  of  the  fool."  "  For  as  the  crackling 
of  thorns  under  a  pot,  so  is  the  laughter  of  the  fool."  Ecclesiastes, 
vii,  6. 

159,  21.  Pourparlers:  "conferences." 

159,  33.  Bonhomie:  "good  humor." 

160,  31.  Serpent:  a  bass  wind  instrument,  formerly  used  in  mili- 
tary bands. 


326  Notes  and  Comment 

161,  14.  Apogee  to  perigee:  a  continuation  of  the  simile  "planet- 
like  courses."  Apogee  is  the  point  in  the  moon's  orbit  which  is 
furthest  from  the  earth;  perigee  is  the  point  which  is  nearest  to  the 
earth. 

167,  9.  Casterbridge.  A  map  of  Mr.  Hardy's  Wessex  may  be 
found  in  recent  editions  of  most  of  the  novels. 

174,  31.  Circulus,  cujus  centrum  diabolus:  "a  circle  of  which 
the  center  is  the  devil."  t 

ROBERT  LOUIS  STEVENSON 

Robert  Louis  Stevenson  was  born  on  November  13,  1850,  in  Edin- 
burgh, and  there  he  spent  his  happy  though  delicate  childhood,  and 
sauntered  with  observant  eyes  through  the  University.  He  made  a 
bowing  acquaintance  with  his  father's  profession,  civil  engineering, 
and  he  was  admitted  to  the  Scotch  bar,  but  his  heart  was  engaged  in 
authorship  from  the  outset.  By  the  time  he  was  twenty-four  he  was 
already  a  delightful  essayist  for  the  Cornhill  Magazine;  his  first  and 
perhaps  most  charming  work  in  this  vein  is  collected  in  Virginibus 
Puerisque,  1881,  and  Familiar  Studies  of  Men  and  Books,  1882.  A 
consumptive  tendency  and  a  taste  for  travel  combined  to  make  him 
a  life-long  wanderer  in  search  of  health  and  adventure.  Two  of  his 
earlier  excursions  on  the  Continent  he  turned  to  literary  account  in 
An  Inland  Voyage,  1878,  and  Travels  with  a  Donkey,  1879 — books  in 
which  picturesque  description  is  enlivened  by  high  spirits,  poetic 
sentiment,  and  a  light-hearted  Bohemian  philosophy.  In  1879 
with  very  poor  health  and  the  slightest  visible  means  ^support  he 
made  a  rather  desperate  journey  to  California,  and  in  the  following 
year  brought  home  as  his  wife  an  American  lady  whom  he  had  met 
some  years  earlier  at  an  artists'  colony  in  France.  In  the  next  seven 
years,  while  residing  uneasily  in  the  Scotch  Highlands,  in  the  Alps, 
in  France,  and  in  England,  he  produced  more  essays  and  a  biographi- 
cal memoir;  two  volumes  of  verse — A  Child's  Garden  of  Verses,  1885, 
and  Underwoods,  1887;  three  volumes  of  short  stories — New  Arabian 
Nights,  1882,  More  New  Arabian  Nights,  1885,  and  The  Merry  Men 
and  Other  Tales,  1886;  and  four  novels  and  romances — Treasure  Island, 
1882,  Prince  Otto,  1885,  The  Strange  Case  of  Dr.  Jekyll  and  Mr.  Plyde, 
1886,  and  Kidnapped,  1886.  In  1887,  still  pursuing  his  fugitive  health, 
he  went  again  to  America,  where  he  spent  a  winter  in  the  Adiron- 
dacks  working  upon  a  new  novel,  The  Master  of  Ballantrae.  In  the 
following  year  he  chartered  a  small  schooner  and  sailed  for  a  long 


Notes  and  Comment  327 

cruise  in  the  South  Pacific,  which  ended  in  his  establishing  his 
home  in  Samoa.  Neither  voyaging  nor  supervising  his  barbarians  on 
the  new  plantation  seems  seriously  to  have  interrupted  the  course  of 
his  pen.  Into  the  period  following  his  last  departure  from  America  fall 
The  Black  Arrow,  1888,  The  Master  of  Ballanirae,  1889,  Island  Night's 
Entertainment,  1893,  David  Balfour,  1894,  other  works  written  in 
collaboration  with  his  stepson,  and  poems,  travels,  essays,  and  tales, 
some  of  which  were  left  fragmentary  by  his  sudden  death  in  December, 
1894.  (The  most  important  biographical  materials  are  in  The  Letters 
of  Robert  Louis  Stevenson,  2  vols.,  1901,  and  The  Life  of  Robert  Louis 
Stevenson  by  Graham  Balfour,  2  vols.,  1908.) 

Stevenson  is  not  only  one  of  the  most  popular  authors  but  also  one 
of  the  most  fascinating  men  of  his  times.  The  secret  of  his  charm  as  a 
man  is  that  he  fashioned  for  himself  a  singularly  distinct  and  piquant 
character  with  a  core  of  Calvinistic  conscience,  unflinching  courage, 
the  vivacity  and  grace  and  gayety  of  a  Cavalier,  and  the  minor  tastes 
and  the  garb  of  a  Bohemian.  He  was  able  to  reach  a  great  variety 
of  readers  because  he  offered  a  wide  range  of  attractions.  The  root 
of  the  matter  is  that  he  himself  was  keenly  interested  in  an  abundance 
of  vital  subjects:  in  the  major  passions  and  morals  of  men;  in  the 
manners  of  nations,  Scotch,  English,  French  and  barbarian;  in  the 
changing  beauty  and  terror  of  the  face  of  nature;  in  poetry,  religion, 
and  history;  in  literature  as  an  extension  of  personal  experience 
and  in  literature  considered  as  a  fine  art.  Question  has  been  raised 
as  to  whether  he  understood  the  feminine  nature;  but  his  Garden  of 
Verses  proves  that  he  knew  the  mind  of  a  child;  his  Treasure  Island 
is  evidence  that  he  had  at  times  the  heart  of  a  boy;  from  his  essays 
it  is  clear  that  he  was  expert  in  all  the  hopes  and  fears  and  wayward 
moods  of  early  manhood;  Dr.  Jekyll  and  Mr.  Hyde  shows  to  the 
satisfaction  of  clergymen  that  he  had  maturely  consulted  the  bosom 
of  sinful  man.  Now  the  versatility  of  his  interests  was  matched  by 
the  versatility  of  his  powers  of  expression.  He  spoke  to  his  public 
through  almost  every  important  literary  form:  a  great  variety  of 
verse;  the  drama;  the  book  of  travel;  the  biographical  memoir;  history; 
essays  in  literary  criticism,  reminiscence,  the  pleasures  of  life,  and  lay 
morals;  fables  and  short  stories  of  divers  lands  in  many  styles;  novels 
and  romances,  historical,  romantic,  and  allegorical;  letters  as  familiar 
as  talk  and  as  sparkling  as  dramatic  dialogue.  He  is  esteemed  by 
literary  craftsmen  for  the  artistic  conscientiousness  of  his  work. 
Briefly  speaking,  a  man  with  an  "artistic  conscience"  is  one  who 
does  his  work  well  enough  to  satisfy  everybody  else;  and  then  does  it 


328  Notes  and  Comment 

all  over  again  to  satisfy  himself.  Stevenson  has  been  somewhat 
mistakenly  praised  by  popular  moralists  as  an  "optimist";  de- 
spite the  gayety  of  his  tone,  he  looked  upon  life  as  a  mixed  and 
difficult  affair,  through  which  one  could  come  creditably  only  by 
gritting  one's  teeth  and  playing  the  game  like  a  man.  By  critics  of 
the  recent  "realistic"  school  he  is  sometimes  disparagingly  labeled  a 
"Nee-Romantic."  If  he  is  to  be  associated  with  the  Romanticists, 
one  should  be  careful  to  distinguish  between  being  romantic  with  Foe 
and  being  romantic  with  Scott;  between  the  romance  of  melancholy 
vision  and  opium  dream,  and  the  romance  of  history  and  adventur- 
ous living. 

WILL  O'  THE  MILL 

"Will  o'  The  Mill"  was  first  published  in  the  Cornhitt  Magazine 
in  1878.  The  natural  setting  of  the  story  was,  as  his  biographer  tells 
us,  "a  combination  of  the  Murgthal  in  Baden  and  the  Brenner  Pass 
in  Tyrol,  over  which  he  went  on  his  Grand  Tour  at  the  age  of  twelve." 
The  contemplative  life,  which  Will  represents,  attracted  Stevenson 
more  in  his  youth  than  in  his  maturer  years.  He  declared  later  that 
he  had  written  "Will  o'  The  Mill"  as  a  kind  of  experiment  to  see 
how  charming  he  could  make  a  way  of  living  that  was  almost  the 
opposite  of  his  own.  It  was  in  this  same  year  1878  that  he  wrote  his 
"Song  of  the  Road,"  a  poem  which,  while  it  calls  us  over  the  hills 
and  far  away,  lightly  declares  that  it  is  not  worth  while  to  go  any- 
where in  particular: 

For  who  would  gravely  set  his  face 
To  go  to  this  or  t'other  place? 
There's  nothing  under  Heav'n  so  blue 
That's  fairly  worth  the  traveling  to. 

In  his  pleasant  purposelessness,  Will  reminds  one  of  the  winsome 
idler  in  Stevenson's  early  greenwood  romance,  Prince  Otto.  In  his 
philosophizing  turn,  he  is  just  a  bit  like  Thoreau,  whom  Stevenson, 
in  Familiar  Studies  of  Men  and  Books,  praises  for  many  virtues  and 
censures  for  the  vice  of  hanging  back.  "Acts  may  be  forgiven," 
says  the  lay  moralist,  "not  even  God  can  forgive  the  hanger-back." 
The  adventurous  spirit  of  most  of  his  works  and  of  his  own  life 
may  be  suggested  by  a  couple  of  stanzas  from  one  of  the  Songs  oj 
Travel: 


Notes  and  Comment  329 

The  untented  Kosmos  my  abode, 

I  pass,  a  wilful  stranger: 
My  mistress  still  the  open  road 

And  the  bright  eyes  of  danger. 
Come  ill  or  well,  the  cross,  the  crown, 

The  rainbow  or  the  thunder, 
I  fling  my  soul  and  body  down 

For  God  to  plough  them  under. 

The  Plain  and  the  Stars.  The  "fat  young  man's"  meditations 
upon  Arcturus  and  Aldebaran  and  his  parable  of  the  "  squirrel  turning 
in  a  cage"  may  profitably  be  compared  with  Carlyle's  chapter  "  Center 
of  Indifference"  in  Sartor  Resartus.  The  following  passage  will  sug- 
gest the  parallelism: 

"Ach  Gott,  when  I  gazed  into  these  Stars,  have  they  not  looked 
down  on  me  as  if  with  pity,  from  their  serene  spaces;  like  Eyes  glisten- 
ing with  heavenly  tears  over  the  little  lot  of  man!  Thousands  of 
human  generations,  all  as  noisy  as  our  own,  have  been  swallowed  up 
of  Time,  and  there  remains  no  wreck  of  them  any  more;  and  Arcturus 
and  Orion  and  Sirius  and  the  Pleiades  are  still  shining  in  their  courses, 
clear  and  young,  as  when  the  Shepherd  first  noted  them  in  the  plain 
of  Shinar.  Pshaw!  what  is  this  paltry  little  Dog-cage  of  an  Earth; 
what  art  thou  that  sittest  whining  there?" 

THE  SIRE  DE  MALETROIT'S  DOOR 

"The  Sire  de  Maletroit's  Door,"  made  its  first  appearance  in  the 
January  number  of  Temple  Bar,  1878,  and  was  included  in  New  Ara- 
bian Nights,  1882.  Mr.  Balfour  informs  us  that  it  was  "invented  in 
France,  first  told  over  the  fire  one  evening  in  Paris,  and  ultimately 
written  in  Penzance."  At  this  period  of  his  life  Stevenson  was  fre- 
quently in  France,  and  was  much  interested  in  French  romancers, 
particularly  Hugo  and  Dumas,  and  in  French  poetry,  particularly 
that  of  the  fifteenth  century.  In  1876  he  contributed  to  the  Cornkill 
Magazine  his  essay  on  "Charles  of  Orleans,"  and  in  1877  his  essay 
on  "Francis  Villon" — both  fifteenth  century  poets.  In  1877  was 
published  also  "A  Lodging  for  the  Night,"  a  fifteenth  century  tale 
with  Villon  as  hero. 

217,  14.  The  troops  of  Burgundy  and  England.  England,  then 
attempting  to  establish  her  sovereignty  in  France,  had  the  Duke 
of  Burgundy  for  an  ally.  Denis  de  Beaulieu  was  on  the  side  of  the 


330  Notes  and  Comment 

French  king,  Charles  VII,  who  held  his  court  in  Bourges,  Denis's 
native  town.  Though  Denis,  for  unexplained  reasons,  was  on  "safe- 
conduct,"  it  was  obviously  hazardous  for  him  to  wander  after  dark 
through  streets  where  he  was  liable  to  meet  hostile  and  drunken 
soldiers. 

218,  12.  Chateau  Landon:  a  small  ancient  town,  southeast  of 
Paris. 

219,  23.  Hotel:  for  the  French  hdtel,  a  mansion. 
223,  6.  Bearings:  emblems  in  a  coat  of  arms. 

223,3i.  Leonardo's  women.  Leonardo  Da  Vinci  (1452-1519)  was 
a  Florentine  of  great  and  manifold  talents.  His  most  celebrated  fe- 
male portrait  is  the  Mona  Lisa,  recently  stolen  from  the  Louvre  and 
recovered  in  Italy.  The  portrait  of  Mona  Lisa — otherwise  known  as 
La  Gioconda — is  eloquently  described  by  Pater  in  his  chapter  on 
Leonardo  in  The  Renaissance. 

225,  8.  damoiseau:  a  title  given  to  young  noblemen,  aspirants  to 
knighthood,  etc. 

SIR  JAMES  MATTHEW  BARRIE 

James  Matthew  Barrie  was  born  in  1860  in  the  linen-weaving  town 
called  Thrums  in  his  books  and  Kirriemuir  on  the  maps  of  Scotland. 
He  attended  the  Dumfries  Academy,  and  made  a  beginning  in  jour- 
nalism by  contributing  sporting  notes  to  the  local  papers.  In  1882 
he  received  the  Bachelor's  degree  at  the  University  of  Edinburgh 
with  distinction  in  English  literature.  In  the  following  year  he  se- 
cured the  position  of  leader  writer  on  the  Nottingham  Journal  at 
three  guineas  a  week.  Having  a  pretty  free  hand  in  the  editorial 
room,  he  quickly  developed  the  power  of  writing  rapidly  and  well 
on  a  great  variety  of  topics.  And  while  he  was  giving  a  literary 
flavor  to  the  Journal,  he  kept  one  eye  upon  the  metropolis  and  the 
London  papers.  He  began  to  make  capital  of  his  life  in  Thrums  with 
an  article  entitled  "An  Auld  Licht  Community,"  which  was  published 
in  the  St.  James  Gazette  in  1884.  In  1885  he  established  himself  in 
London,  and  was  soon  a  prolific  contributor  to  various  periodicals. 
His  works  fall  into  three  divisions  corresponding  roughly  to  the  stages 
of  his  literary  career:  miscellaneous  articles,  sketches,  and  short 
stories  originally  published  in  periodicals;  novels;  and  plays.  In 
1887  he  published  a  little  book  called  Better  Dead,  which  gives  a 
humorous  account  of  a  society  for  putting  eminent  undesirable 
citizens  out  of  the  world.  He  made  his  first  collection  of  Thrums 


Notes  and  Comment  331 

sketches,  Auld  Licht  Idyls,  in  1888;  to  this  he  added  in  1889  A 
Window  in  Thrums;  and  in  1890  My  Lady  Nicotine,  a  collection  of 
bachelor  reminiscences  and  fancies.  In  1888  he  published  When  a 
Man's  Single,  an  imperfect  but  very  jolly  novel  based  upon  his 
journalistic  experiences  in  Nottingham  and  London.  In  1891  ap- 
peared the  more  celebrated  Little  Minister;  in  1896,  Sentimental 
Tommy  and  Margaret  Ogifay;  in  1900,  Tommy  and  Grizel.  In  his 
later  period  Barrie  turned  to  the  drama  and  freshened  it  with  his 
dainty  sentiment,  whimsical  mirth,  and  ingenious  fancies.  Of  the 
dozen  or  more  plays  now  to  his  credit  may  be  mentioned:  The  Little 
Minister,  1897;  Quality  Street,  1903;  Peter  Pan,  1904;  What  Every 
Woman  Knows,  1908. 

There  is  a  rather  fascinating  young  journalist  in  When  a  Man's 
Single  who  sees  "copy"  in  his  own  love  story:  "My  God,"  groans 
Dick  Abinger,  "I  would  write  an  article,  I  think,  on  my  mother's 
coffin."  Barrie  is  very  like  Dick  Abinger.  He  has  the  observant  eye 
of  a  journalist,  quick  sympathies,  a  quizzical  humor,  sentiment,  and 
piquant,  unconventional  speech;  and  he  is  attended  always  by  a  kind 
of  elvish  secondary  personality,  engaged  in  writing  his  autobiography. 
He  served  up  the  memories  of  his  Scotch  boyhood  in  Auld  Licht  Idyls, 
A  Window  in  Thrums,  and  The  Little  Minister;  and,  to  use  the  slang 
phrase,  he  put  the  little  town  permanently  "on  the  map"  of  literature, 
with  its  savory  dialect  and  quaint  idioms,  its  bannocks  and  scones, 
its  odd  characters,  its  queer  courtships  and  little  tragedies,  and  its 
endless  religious  bickerings.  The  most  interesting  man  that  Barrie 
has  put  into  fiction  is  himself — the  eternally-young  man  of  artistic 
temperament,  constantly  falling  in  love,  yet  a  bachelor  at  heart.  In 
When  a  Man's  Single  he  cuts  himself  in  two,  and  gives  his  Nottingham 
newspaper  experience  to  Rob  Angus  and  his  earlier  London  career 
to  Dick  Abinger.  In  Sentimental  Tommy  he  turns  his  artistic  tempera- 
ment inside  out.  In  Margaret  Ogilvy  he  draws  upon  his  fond  recol- 
lections of  his  mother  and  her  relations  with  him.  In  Tommy  and 
Grizel  he  has  a  laugh  at  his  own  sentimentality  and  hangs  himself — 
so  to  speak,  in  effigy.  When  Barrie  had  made  his  mark  in  the  novel, 
he  turned  to  the  drama,  which  needed  him  badly,  and  delighted  his 
audiences  with  original  medleys  of  quivering  sentiment  and  rippling 
laughter.  His  passage  from  fugitive  sketch  to  short  story,  from 
short  story  to  novel,  from  novel  to  fairy  play  has  been  singularly 
facile  and  light-footed.  He  gives  the  impression  of  one  "  tripping  the 
light  fantastic."  Stevenson  said  of  him,  years  ago,  that  he  had  genius 
but  had  always  a  journalist  at  his  elbow.  The  but-clause  marks  an 


332  Notes  and  Comment 

important  difference  between  him  and  his  fellow-Scot.  When 
Stevenson  sat  down  to  write,  his  mind  never  wandered  to  morning 
papers  or  to  handkerchiefs  waving  in  the  galleries. 

THE  COURTING  OF  T'NOWHEAD'S  BELL" 

"The  Courting  of  T'nowhead's  Bell"  constitutes  Chapter  VIII  in 
Auld  Licht  Idyls,  1888.  The  book  as  a  whole  is  a  full  and  delightful 
commentary  upon  the  customs,  manners,  and  characters  of  an  Auld 
Licht  community.  Those  who  are  dissatisfied  with  Bell  for  letting 
Sam'l  off  so  easily  should  read  as  a  sequel  Barrie's  fine  short  story, 
"How  Gavin  Birse  Put  it  to  Mag  Lownie." 

242,  3.  Thrums.  Barrie's  name  in  fiction  for  Kirriemuir,  his  birth- 
place in  Forfarshire,  Scotland — a  town  with  a  population  in  1901  of 
4096. 

242,  12.  The  kirk.  The  Auld  Licht  kirk  was  a  very  strait-laced 
denomination  founded  in  1806.  Chapter  III  of  Auld  Licht  Idyls 
discusses  the  church  and  its  members  and  also  the  intense  inter-de- 
nominational jealousies  and  hatreds  of  the  town. 

242,  17-18.  Lang  Tammas'  circle.    Lang  Tammas  was  precentor 
of  the  kirk  and  his  circle  was  strictly  religious;  for  further  details 
see  Chapter  III  of  Auld  Licht  Idyls. 

243,  ii.  The  square:  the  central  foregathering  place  in  Thrums. 
249,  10.  Rob  Angus:  the  hero  of  Barrie's  When  a  Man's  Single. 
252,  24-25.  Muckle  Friday.     A  passage  in  the  second  chapter  of 

Auld  Licht  Idyls,  explains  "Muckle  Friday"  and  also  illustrates  the 
great  scarcity  of  money  in  the  community — a  point  of  significance 
in  connection  with  the  "extravegint"  gift  of  Sam'l:  "On  the  Muckle 
Friday,  the  fair  for  which  children  storing  their  pocket-money  would 
accumulate  sevenpence  halfpenny  in  less  than  six  months,  the  square 
was  crammed  with  gingerbread  stalls,  bag-pipers,  fiddlers,  and 
monstrosities  who  were  gifted  with  second-sight." 

254,  18-19.  Fortunately  he  did  not  meet  the  minister.  The 
terror  in  which  the  minister  was  held  is  illustrated  by  the  reference  to 
"Joey  Sutie,  who  was  pointed  at  in  Thrums  as  the  laddie  that 
whistled  when  he  went  past  the  minister.  Joey  became  a  pedler,  and 
was  found  dead  one  raw  morning  dangling  over  a  high  wall  within 
a  few  miles  of  Thrums.  When  climbing  the  dyke  his  pack  had 
slipped  back,  the  strap  round  his  neck,  and  choked  him."  Second 
chapter  of  Auld  Licht  Idyls.  Barrie  utilized  this  incident  later  in 
his  novel,  Tommy  and  Grizel. 


Notes  and  Comment  333 

260,  14.  U.  P.  kirk:  United  Presbyterian  Church. 

262,  7.  Penny  wedding.  "Perhaps  the  penny  extra  to  the  fid- 
dler accounts  for  the  name  penny  wedding.  The  ceremony  having 
been  gone  through  in  the  bride's  house,  there  was  an  adjournment  to 
a  barn  or  other  convenient  place  of  meeting,  where  was  held  the  nup- 
tial feast."  Auld  Licht  Idyls,  Ch.  IV. 

0.  HENRY 

O.  Henry,  whose  real  name  was  William  Sidney  Porter,  was  born  in 
1862  in  Greenboro,  North  Carolina,  where  he  received  his  education, 
and  clerked  in  his  uncle's  drug  store.  According  to  a  testimonial  of 
1884,  he  was  a  young  man  of  good  moral  character,  and  "a  No  one 
druggist,"  and  very  popular  among  his  many  friends.  He  went  to 
Texas,  and  in  1884  wrote  home  from  a  ranch  in  La  Salle  County: 
"If  long  hair,  part  of  a  sombrero,  Mexican  spurs,  &c.,  would  make  a 
fellow  famous,  I  already  occupy  a  topmost  niche  in  the  Temple 
Frame."  In  this  same  youthful  and  effervescent  letter  appear  already 
the  marks  of  O.  Henry's  vivid,  slangy,  humorous  style:  "I  have  al- 
most forgotten  what  a  regular  old,  gum-chewing,  ice-cream  destroy- 
ing, opera-ticket  vortex,  ivory-clawing  girl  looks  like."  After  some 
years  of  ranching  and  clerking  in  an  Austin  bank,  O.  Henry  attempted 
to  run  a  humorous  weekly  story-paper  which  he  christened  The 
Rolling  Stone,  and,  mainly  by  his  own  hand,  kept  alive  in  Austin  for 
a  part  of  1894  and  1895.  The  venture  was  unsuccessful;  and  the 
editor  began  to  roll — reporting  for  a  while  on  the  Houston  Post, 
visiting  Central  America,  fruitlessly  experimenting  with  banana  cul- 
ture, and  apparently  clerking  again  in  a  drug  store.  In  the  course  of 
these  imperfectly  recorded  meanderings  he  accumulated  his  literary 
moss,  and  at  length  settled  down  in  New  Orleans  to  become  an  author. 
He  made  no  great  impression  upon  the  public,  however,  till  1901, 
when  he  went  to  New  York  and  besieged  the  magazine  editors.  He 
then  swiftly  became  one  of  the  most  popular  short-story  writers  in 
America,  and  was  in  the  full  tide  of  production  at  the  time  of  his  death 
in  1910.  His  collections  of  stories  were  published  as  follows:  Cabbages 
and  Kings,  1905;  The  Four  Million,  1906;  The  Trimmed  Lamp,  1907; 
The  Gentle  Grafter,  1908;  Options,  1909;  Roads  of  Destiny,  1909; 
Strictly  Business,  1910;  Whirligigs,  1910;  Sixes  and  Sevens,  1911. 
Rolling  Stones,  1912,  contains,  in  addition  to  a  number  of  stories, 
a  considerable  amount  of  biographical  matter — photographs,  letters, 
drawings  by  O.  Henry,  and  reproductions  of  pages  of  the  original 
Batting  Stone. 


334  Notes  and  Comment 

O.  Henry,  like  the  earlier  Kipling,  departs  sharply  from  the  beaten 
paths  of  fiction  and  strikes  into  new  and  unregarded  fields.  He  has 
seen  what  the  tramp  sees,  and  the  itinerant  swindler,  the  commercial 
traveler,  the  newspaper  reporter.  He  is  perhaps  the  greatest  of 
short-story  writers  in  the  picaresque  manner.  He  does  not  go  far 
beneath  the  rank  surface  of  his  territory,  but  goes  wide  over  it  with  a 
devouring  eye;  he  has  the  "All-American"  outlook  of  universal 
rascaldom.  He  has  made  a  great  harvest  of  the  sounds  and  sights 
and  smells  of  New  York  City  in  chop  house,  saloon,  "  lobster-palace," 
flat,  tenement,  park,  police  court,  Broadway,  Coney  Island.  He 
knows,  too,  the  roads  and  railways  branching  into  the  South  and 
stretching  across  the  West;  the  various  features  and  characters  of 
towns  and  cities  from  Chicago  down  the  Mississippi  Valley  to  New 
Orleans  and  out  to  'Frisco;  the  ranchers  and  miners  and  the  pic- 
turesque riff-raff  of  adventurers  floating  through  Arizona,  Texas, 
Mexico,  and  South  America,  and  the  returned  wanderer  from  the 
Philippines.  Though  his  individual  characters  are  for  the  most  part 
not  memorable,  they  exhibit  in  the  mass  a  great  deal  of  "human 
nature";  he  has  not  dealt  much  with  the  exceptional  passions  which 
raise  a  few  men  above  the  crowd,  but  he  has  sharply  indicated  the 
common  tone  and  garb  and  gesture  of  an  entire  stratum  of  society. 
His  plots  are  very  craftily  premeditated,  and  are  notable  for  terminal 
surprises,  which,  like  an  electric  button,  suddenly  flash  an  unexpected 
illumination  from  end  to  end  of  the  story.  His  surprises,  furthermore, 
are  not  generally  dependent  upon  arbitrary  arrangements  of  external 
circumstances  but  upon  plausible  shifts  and  twists  in  the  feelings  and 
ideas  of  the  human  agents.  His  style  is  an  original  creation:  intensely 
contemporaneous;  inelegant  and  slangy  but,  in  its  way,  immensely 
learned;  startling  with  Pickwickian  paraphrase  and  grotesque  ex- 
amples of  the  mot  precis;  "rich  beyond  the  dreams  of  average — rich 
as  Greasers"  with  malapropisms  and  allusions  to  Walt  Whittier, 
Albert  Tennyson,  and  contemporary  celebrities  of  less  durable  repu- 
tations; stuffed  with  puns,  good  and  bad, — a  kind  of  spicy,  fruity 
cake,  in  short,  into  which  one  bites  in  constant  expectation  of  striking 
a  vernacular  coin  fresh  from  the  mint. 

PHOEBE 

Phttbe  was  included  in  the  volume,  Roads  of  Destiny,  1909.  In 
its  comic  treatment  of  Central  American  politics  it  is  to  be  associated 
with  O.  Henry's  first  volume  of  stories,  Cabbages  and  Kings,  1905. 


Notes  and  Comment  335 

266,  17.  Wedding-guest:  an  allusion  to  Coleridge's  "Ancient 
Mariner  " : 

The  Wedding-Guest  stood  still, 
And  listens  like  a  three  years'  child: 
The  Mariner  hath  his  will. 

266,  24.  Charm  against  evil.  O.  Henry's  reason  for  mentioning 
this  charm  appears  in  the  last  sentence  of  the  story. 

270,  1 6.  No  solider  of  body  than  split-pea  soup.  The  density  of 
Saturn  is  0.13  that  of  the  earth — considerably  less  than  that  of  "split- 
pea  soup." 

270,  27.  Izard.  The  old  name  of  the  letter  Z. 

271,  8.  That's  Phoebe.     Phcebe,  the  ninth  satellite  of  Saturn,  was 
discovered  in  1898  by  W.  H.  Pickering  in  photographs  of  the  sky 
near  Saturn,  which  were  taken  at  the  branch  Harvard  observatory 
at  Arequipa,  Peru. 

273,  i.  Compadre  mio :  "my  friend." 

273,  6.  Capitan:  "captain." 

273,  9.  Valgame  Dios:  "good  lord." 

276,  2.  Balmaceda.    Jose  Manuel  Balmaceda  was  elected  pres- 
ident of  Chile  in  1886.    His  attempt  to  collect  taxes  without  convok- 
ing the  assembly  led  to  the  Chilean  Civil  War  of  1891.    He  was 
defeated,  and  committed  suicide  in  September  of  that  year. 

277,  30-31.  En  la  causa  de  la  libertad:  "in  the  cause  of  liberty." 

278,  20.  Mala  suerte:  "bad  luck— the  deuce." 

279,  9.  Companero:  "comrade." 
279,  16.  Adios:  "good-by." 

282,  32.  Residencia:  "mansion." 

283,  9.  Came:  "meat." 
283,  10.  Cantinas:  "shops." 
283,  29.  Mozo:  "man-servant." 

RUDYARD  KIPLING 

Rudyard  Kipling  was  born  on  December  30,  1865,  in  Bombay, 
India,  where  his  father  was  architectural  sculptor  in  the  Bombay 
School  of  Art.  He  was  educated  at  the  United  Services  College  in 
Devonshire,  England,  and  has  given  some  account  of  his  school  life 
in  Stalky  and  Co.  Returning  to  India,  he  became  in  i88S  assistant- 
editor  of  the  Lahore  Civil  and  Military  Gazette,  to  which  he  contributed 
many  of  his  earlier  tales.  By  the  time  he  was  twenty-four  the  young — 


336  Notes  and  Comment 

not  to  say  juvenile — editor  had  published  a  volume  of  verse — Depart- 
mental Ditties— and  Plain  Tales  from  the  Hills,  Soldiers  Three,  The 
Story  of  the  Gadsbys,  In  Black  and  While,  Under  the  Deodars,  The 
Phantom  'Rickshaw,  and  Wee  Willie  Winkie.  Between  his  twenty- 
second  and  twenty-fourth  years  he  travelled  extensively  in  India, 
China,  Japan,  and  America,  sent  his  impressions  of  travel  to  his 
Indian  newspapers,  and  later  collected  them  in  two  volumes,  From 
Sea  to  Sea,  1899.  In  1891  he  published  another  collection  of  Indian 
Tales,  Life's  Handicap,  and  his  first  novel,  The  Light  that  Failed; 
in  the  same  year  he  wrote  in  conjunction  with  Wolcott  Balestier 
The  Naulahka.  In  1892  he  married  Balestier's  sister,  an  American, 
and  for  some  years  made  one  of  his  homes  in  Brattleboro,  Vermont. 
The  most  notable  American  fruit  of  his  American  sojourn  was  his 
tale  of  the  Gloucester  fishermen,  Captains  Courageous,  1897.  But 
before  he  made  his  permanent  residence  in  England  he  published  the 
Barrack-Room  Ballads,  1892,  Many  Inventions,  1893,  the  two  Jungle 
Books,  1894  and  1895,  an  important  volume  of  verse — The  Seven 
Seas,  1896,  and  The  Day's  Work,  1898,  a  collection  of  short  stories 
containing  some  remarkable  mechanical  fantasies.  In  1898  he 
visited  South  Africa,  then  on  the  eve  of  conflict  with  Great  Britain, 
and  became  an  ardent  and  influential  advocate  of  annexation.  His 
chief  later  publications  are:  Stalky  and  Co.,  1899;  Kim,  1901;  Just 
So  Stories,  1902;  The  Five  Nations,  1903;  Traffics  and  Discoveries,  1904; 
Puck  of  Pook's  Hill,  1906;  Actions  and  Reactions,  1909;  Rewards  and 
Fairies,  1910.  (See  G.  F.  Monkshood's  Rudyard  Kipling,  1899, 
and  Richard  Le  Gallienne's  Rudyard  Kipling,  1900;  the  latter  con- 
tains a  bibliography  by  John  Lane.) 

Mr.  Kipling  began  by  telling  his  spicy  tales  to  his  own  "parish" 
of  Lahore,  but  in  an  amazingly  short  time  he  had  the  attention 
of  the  whole  world,  for  it  became  evident  that  he  was  making  a  Jame- 
son raid  and  annexing  new  provinces  to  the  imperial  realm  of  English 
fiction.  To  readers  yawning  over  the  early  Victorian  novelists  or 
growing  blue  over  recent  French  and  Russian  realism,  he  sent  his 
short  stories  like  a  triumphal  procession  with  a  flash  and  clatter  of 
cavalry,  Tommy  Atkins  bronzed  by  tropical  suns  and  rich  with  strange 
trophies  in  red  coat  and  khaki  rhythmically  marching,  red-mouthed 
kings  of  the  jungle,  a  bristling  of  wild  spearmen,  the  thunder  of  ord- 
nance, the  pomp  of  turbaned  rajahs,  and  the  trumpeting  of  ele- 
phants. Readers  are  exhilarated  by  violent  contrasts,  and  Kipling 
readily  turned  his  public  from  a  Rossetti  sonnet  to  a  barrack-room 
ballad,  from  a  5oo-page  "slumming"  novel  to  a  ten-page  tragedy 


Notes  and  Comment  337 

"east  of  Suez,"  from  the  gossip  of  a  five-o'-clock  tea  to  a  head-hunt 
in  the  Punjab.  Nor  was  it  merely  the  stuff  of  his  fiction  which  made 
the  novel  appeal.  He  slammed  the  door  on  old  romance — "  the  loves 
and  doves  they  dream," — and  brought  out  and  glorified  the  hard, 
firm-mouthed,  sinful  "man  that  does  things" — the  bridger  of  the 
Ganges,  the  queller  of  native  insurrections,  the  civilian  governor  of 
f ami ne-and-f ever-stricken  districts.  A  disciple  of  Carlyle  in  his 
ethical  system,  he  did  a  good  deal  of  effective  preaching,  and  the 
burden  of  his  message  was  that  man,  machinery,  and  the  very  beasts 
of  the  jungle  are  in  desperate  need  of  law,  order,  discipline,  and  sub- 
ordination. And,  finally,  his  style  was  as  original  as  his  matter  and  his 
doctrine.  In  his  earlier  stories  especially  he  broke  from  the  decorous 
tradition  of  great  English  writers.  He  adopted  a  journalistic  manner, 
crisp,  racy,  slangy,  cynical,  verging  upon  the  brutally  curt.  In 
concocting  his  tales  he  aimed  to  hit  robust  masculine  tastes,  to  speak 
with  a  tang  to  men  in  smoking  rooms,  and  trains  and  barracks.  But 
he  made  them  so  brilliant  with  Oriental  color,  so  intense  and  arresting 
in  their  energy,  wonder,  terror,  and  splendor  that  he  fascinated  not 
merely  the  miscellaneous  reading  multitudes  but  also  the  hardened 
critics  and  the  fastidious  literary  men  like  R.  L.  Stevenson  and  Mr. 
Henry  James,  who  dropped  their  pens,  and  pricked  up  their  ears,  and 
cried  out  to  one  another  that  in  the  smoking-room  there  was  a  great 
artist. 

THE  MAN  WHO  WAS 

286,  4.  Treated  as  the  most  easterly  of  Western  peoples.  In 
his  well-known  poem,  "The  Ballad  of  East  and  West,"  Kipling 
cries: 

"Oh,  East  is  East,  and  West  is  West,  and  never  the  twain  shall  meet, 
Till  Earth  and  Sky  stand  presently  at  God's  great  Judgment  Seat." 

Not  long  before  "The  Mail  Who  Was"  was  written,  Russia  was  ap- 
parently contemplating  pushing  her  frontier  southward  into  Afghan- 
istan, and  so  drawing  nearer  to  the  British  frontier  in  the  Punjab. 
Dirkovitch  is  represented  as  seeking  to  gain  the  assent  and  good  will 
of  the  English  with  regard  to  this  southward  advance.  Kipling's 
story  seems  designed  to  repel  the  Russian  friendship,  and  to  reawaken 
memories  of  the  deadly  hostility  formerly  existing  between  the  two 
peoples.  In  1885  a  Russian  attack  upon  the  northern  border  of 
Afghanistan  produced  critical  relations  with  Great  Britain;  but  the 
difficulties  were  settled  by  the  delimitation  of  the  frontier  in  1887. 


338  Notes  and  Comment 

For  this  amicable  settlement  Lord  Dufferin,  then  viceroy  of  India, 
was  chiefly  responsible.  In  "One  Viceroy  Resigns,"  Kipling  tells  us 
how  Lord  Dufferin  handled  the  Russians: 

"I  told  the  Russian  that  his  Tartar  veins 
Bled  pure  Parisian  ichor;  and  he  purred." 

In  1898  Nicholas  II.  of  Russia  issued  his  memorable  invitation  to 
the  powers  to  hold  a  conference  in  the  interests  of  international 
peace.  Mr.  Kipling  promptly  responded  to  this  overture  with  "The 
Truce  of  the  Bear,"  a  poem  in  which  he  warns  his  countrymen  that 
there  is  no  peace  with  "the  bear  that  looks  like  a  man."  Those  who 
are  seeking  to  bring  the  nations  of  the  world  into  fraternal  relations 
do  not  generally  look  upon  Mr.  Kipling  as  an  ally. 

286,  22.  Peshawur.    A  city  with  a  population  in  1901  of  95,147, 
capital  of  the  North-West  Frontier  Province.    Peshawur  lies  at  the 
mouth  of  the  Khyber  Pass, — which  is  the  most  important  gateway 
between  India  and  Afghanistan, — and  is  consequently  the  most  im- 
portant military  station  of  the  province. 

287,  19-20.  Upper  Burmah  .  .  .  Irrawaddy.    When  the  story 
was  written,  the  reference  to  the  soldiers  "dying  in  the  teak  forests  of 
Upper  Burmah"  had  the  interest  of  an  almost  contemporary  event. 
The  Burmese  War,  in  which  the  British  marched  to  Mandalay  and 
deposed  King  Thibaw,  began  in  1885;  and  Upper  Burmah  was  an- 
nexed on  January  i,  1886.    The  Irrawaddy  is  the  principal  river  in 
the  province. 

288,  16.  Sotnia  of  Cossacks:  a  cavalry  squadron.    The  Cossacks 
are  a  considerable  portion  of  the  Russian  population,  established  in 
various  frontier  districts,  and  accorded  certain  privileges,  in  return 
for  which  each  man  is  bound  to  perform  military  service  from  the  age 
of  is  to  38. 

289,  14.  Pa  than:  a  name  applied  to  the  warlike  Afghan  tribes  of 
the  border. 

291,  3.    Sambhur,  nilghai:  deer,  antelope. 
293,  14.  "Reached  back"  after  the  American  fashion:  as  if 
for  a  revolver  in  the  hip-pocket  or  holster. 

299,  17.  Only  one  weapon  in  the  world:  the  knout,  formerly 
used  freely  in   Russia    for   punishing  criminals  and  political  of- 
fenders. 

300,  27.  The  country:  Siberia. 

300,    28-30.  Chepany  .  .  .  Zhigansk  and  Irkutsk:    towns  of 
Siberia.    Irkutsk  is  within  the  Arctic  Circle. 


Notes  and  Comment  339 

301,  9.  That  was  before  Sebastopol.  The  Crimean  War,  1853- 
1856,  centered  about  the  siege  of  Sebastopol,  which  began  in  1854. 
This  war  had  its  significant  origin  in  Russian  aggressions  upon  Turkey. 
Confident  that  the  Turkish  empire  was  going  to  pieces,  the  Czar  had 
endeavored  to  persuade  England  to  unite  with  him  in  sharing  the 
spoils.  But  England  and  France,  preferring  to  maintain  Turkey 
as  a  buffer  between  Russia  and  western  Europe,  went  to  the  aid  of 
the  Sultan.  Kipling  was  evidently  impressed  by  the  parallelism  of 
the  crisis  of  1885,  and  by  the  importance  of  maintaining  Afghanistan 
as  a  buffer  between  Russia  and  India. 

301,  ii.  Thirty  years  of  his  life  wiped  out.  Thirty  added  to 
1854  gives  1884  as  approximately  the  date  of  the  events  related  in 
the  story. 


QUESTIONS 
I 

RIP  VAN  WINKLE 

I.  How  many  pages  are  given  to  the  preliminary  description  of 
Rip's  character  and  pursuits?    How  does  Irving  illustrate  the  state- 
ment that  "Rip  was  ready  to  attend  to  anybody's  business  but  his 
own"?    What  light  does  Wolf  throw  upon  the  temper  of  Rip's  wife? 
By  what  touches  does  Irving  suggest  the  backward  and  drowsy 
spirit  of  the  village?   Is  Rip  a  fit  person  to  be  the  sport  of  supernatural 
powers? 

II.  At  exactly  what  point  does  the  narrative  proper  begin?    Could 
it  be  detached  without  serious  loss  from  the  "preliminary  descrip- 
tion" ?    From  what  did  Rip  escape  when  he  went  hunting?    What  is 
the  time  of  day,  and  what  is  Rip  doing  at  the  moment  when  the  dis- 
tant voice  calls  out  his  name?    Describe  the  costume  of  the  old  fellow 
with  the  keg  on  his  shoulder.    Of  what  nation  and  of  what  historical 
period  are  the  players  at  nine-pins?    Is  there  anything  later  in  the 
story  to  indicate  that  Irving  has  united  a  legend  concerning  a  super- 
naturally  long  sleep  in  the  mountains  with  an  older  legend  concerning 
the  strange  revels  of  "Hendrick"  Hudson  and  the  crew  of  the  Half- 
Moon?    What  is  the  explanation  of  the  length  of  Rip's  slumber? 

III.  What  proportion  of  the  entire  story  is  occupied  with  events 
subsequent  to  Rip's  awaking?    Is  he  aware,  when  he  wakes,  of  the 
long  flight  of  time?     What  has  remained  essentially  unchanged 
while  he  was  changing?    Do  the  twittering  birds  and  pure  mountain 
breeze  deepen  your  interest  in  his  discovery  of  the  decaying  firelock? 
Are  the  incidents  illustrating  the  lapse  of  twenty  years  arranged  in 
climactic  order?    Describe  the  alterations  in:  (a)  Rip,  his  belongings, 
and  his  family;  (b)  the  inhabitants,  the  houses,  and  the  general  tone 
of  the  village;  (c)  the  politics  and  government  of  the  country.    Does 
Irving    present   these    alterations    directly    to    the   reader   or   in- 
directly through  the  eyes  of  Rip?    Has  society  suffered  by  Rip's  ab- 
sence? 

IV.  What  phrases,  incidents,  and  characters — aside  from  the  hero — 
appeal  to  your  sense  of  humor?   Is  the  passage  in  which  Rip  consoles 

340 


Questions  341 

his  dog  humorous  or  pathetic?  Can  you  find  an  incident  that  is 
purely  pathetic?  What  appeal  is  made  to  the  sense  of  beauty?  How 
much  space  is  given  to  the  description  of  landscape?  Is  the  style 
easy  or  labored,  simple  and  unadorned,  or  complex  and  ornate? 
Can  you  perceive  any  resemblance  between  Irving's  manner  and  that 
of  Addison  in  the  Spectator?  Would  the  creator  of  Sir  Roger  de 
Coverley  have  enjoyed  Rip? 

V.  Did  Irving  expect  his  readers  to  accept  the  events  of  this  tale 
as  matters  of  fact?  If  not,  why  does  he  prefix  the  poetical  quotation 
from  Cartwright?  Does  he  consider  Diedrich  Knickerbocker  a  trust- 
worthy historian?  What  does  he  mean  when  he  says  that  "legendary 
lore"  is  "invaluable  to  true  history"?  (Have  you  read  the  Knicker- 
bocker's History  of  New  York?}  If  you  were  sailing  up  the  Hudson 
or  wandering  in  the  Catskills,  would  it  contribute  anything  to  your 
pleasure  in  purple  mountain  and  majestic  river  to  be  able  to  repeople 
them,  as  Irving  did,  with  their  former  generations — Revolutionary 
parties,  early  Dutch  voyagers  and  settlers,  and  red-skinned  aborigines? 
If  the  reading  of  "Rip  Van  Winkle"  has  quickened  your  interest  in 
these  things,  why  not  read  or  re-read  the  "  Legend  of  Sleepy  Hollow  "? 


II 

THE  MINISTER'S  BLACK  VEIL 

1.  What  indications  are  given  of  the  place  and  historical  period  of 
the  story?   \Vhat  part  of  it  is  occupied  with  the  events  of  a  single  day? 

2.  To  what  denomination  does  the  minister  belong?    Are  there 
any  indications  of  the  form  of  church  government?    Would  such  an 
act  as  his  appear  more  or  less  remarkable  in  another  sort  of  religious 
community? 

3.  On  how  many  distinctly  specified  occasions  does  the  minister 
appear  in  his  black  veil?    Can  you  distinguish  the  nature  of  the  im- 
pressicn  made  by  him  on  each  of  these  occasions? 

4.  Why  does  Hawthorne  call  the  story  a  parable?    Does  it  teach 
a  lesson  which  can  be  put  to  practical  uses?    What  does  the  as- 
sumption of  the  veil  imply  with  regard  to  the  minister's  own  char- 
acter?   Does  remembering  one's  evil  deeds  assist  one  in  the  path 
of  virtue?    What  do  you  think  of  the  value  of  public  penance? 

5.  Outline  a  short  story  or  parable  in  the  manner  of  Hawthorne 
dealing  with  a  man  whose  eyes  mysteriously  and  involuntarily  reflect 
visible  images  of  the  acts  upon  which  he  broods  in  his  heart. 


342  Questions 


m 

ETHAN  BRAND 

1.  Notice  that  this  story  rigorously  observes  the  "unities"  of  time, 
place,  and  action.    What  are  the  limits  of  the  time  indicated?    What 
is  the  extent  of  the  scene  described?    Sum  up  the  action  in  a  single 
sentence.    Notice  that  the  narrative  begins  abruptly  with  a  solemn 
laugh,  runs  on  in  the  dialogue  of  the  lime-burner  and  his  son  for  four 
short  paragraphs,  then  pauses  for  a  descriptive  passage  of  some  length 
and  for  a  few  hints  as  to  the  life  of  Brand  previous  to  the  opening  of 
the  story.    What  advantage  did  Hawthorne  e;ain  by  introducing  the 
mirthless  laugh  before  the  description  and  explanation? 

2.  How  does  the  laugh  affect  Bartram?  How  does  it  affect  the  boy? 
How  do  you  account  for  the  different  effects  upon  father  and  son? 
Does  the  boy  give  any  other  evidence  of  spiritual  sensitiveness  later 
in  the  story? 

3.  Is  the  character  of  Brand  explained  mainly  by  his  actions  or  by 
his  author?    Why  does  he  laugh?    What  was  his  "unpardonable  sin"? 
What  virtues  have  the  stage-agent,  Lawyer  Giles,  and  the  village 
doctor  which  he  has  not?    What  do  you  think  that  Brand  saw  in  the 
diorama  of  the  German  Jew?    What  analogy  did  Brand  perceive 
between  his  own  case  and  that  of  the  dog  in  pursuit  of  its  tail?    Is 
there  any  intimation  that  the  strange  behavior  of  the  dog  is  due  to 
diabolical  influence? 

4.  What  is  the  flaming  mouth  of  the  lime-kiln  intended  to  suggest? 
Can  you  find  any  other  instances  of  symbolical  suggestion?    Is  the 
preservation  of  Brand's  heart  after  the  consumption  of  his  body  an 
example? 

5.  Is  there  anything  pleasurable  in  the  scene,  the  incidents,  or  the 
characters  of  this  story?    Does  it  leave  you  in  cheerful  mood?    Does 
it  make  you  reflect?    Have  you  ever  heard  of  the  "New  England 
conscience"?    Is  the  moral  conveyed  in  this  story  a  wholesome  one? 
Is  the  sin  of  Ethan  Brand  very  prevalent  in  your  neighborhood? 

IV 
THE  FALL  OF  THE  HOUSE  OF  USHER 

i.  Poe  has  an  astonishing  command  of  the  resources  of  emotional 
suggestion.  Before  admitting  us  to  the  interior  of  the  House  of  Usher, 
he  deliberately  seeks  to  produce  in  us  an  overwhelming  sense  of  deso- 


Questions  343 

Jation,  decay,  and  mysterious  sorrow.  Make  a  list  of  the  depressing 
adjectives  and  images  in  the  first  paragraph.  What  part  of  the  effect 
of  this  paragraph  upon  you  is  due  to  the  actual  description  of  the  house 
and  its  surroundings?  What  part  is  due  to  the  narrator's  account  of 
the  state  of  his  own  nerves  and  his  melancholy  fancies?  Should  you 
expect  a  more  cheerful  impression  of  the  house  to  result  from  seeing 
its  inverted  reflection  in  the  black  tarn?  Why  does  Poe  repeat  the 
phrase,  "the  vacant  and  eye-like  windows"?  Tell  in  a  single  brief 
sentence  what  is  accomplished  by  each  of  the  first  seven  paragraphs. 
Is  the  writer  himself  morbid? 

2.  In  what  sentence  does  Poe  summarize  the  effect  of  the  various 
details  of  Usher's  studio?   What  strokes  in  the  description  of  this  room 
continue  the  suggestion  of  mystery?    What  epithets  applied  to  the 
valet  and  the  physician  are  calculated  to  make  one  uneasy?    Is  the 
description  of  Usher's  personal  appearance  intended  to  be  repellent? 
By  what  symptoms  are  his  extreme  nervousness  and  sensitiveness 
emphasized?    How  is  the  feeling  of  suspense  aroused  in  the  account 
of 'Usher's  fear?    Do  you  know  what  he  fears?    Why  does  not  Usher 
introduce  his  visitor  to  Madeline?    If  Poe  had  named  the  lady  Mary, 
how  would  it  have  affected  your  feelings  with  regard  to  her? 

3.  A  series  of  paragraphs  following  the  description  of  the  sister's 
malady  sets  forth  the  various  talents  of  Usher.    What  in  general  is 
the  function  of  these  paragraphs?    Do  they  heighten  your  interest  in 
Usher?    Do  they  render  him  more  or  less  attractive?    More  or  less 
mysterious?    Does  Usher's  painting  of  the  tunnel  mean  anything 
to  you?    Is  the  ballad  an  allegory?    What  is  the  general  character 
of  Usher's  favorite  books?    Is  his  reading  adapted  to  correct  the 
dreamy  vagueness  of  his  feelings  and  ideas?    Would  Usher  have  en- 
joyed the  works  of  Mark  Twain? 

4.  From  the  time  of  the  entombment  of  Madeline  to  the  end  of 
the  story  there  is  a  rapid  accumulation  of  terrors.    Why  does  Poe 
speak  of  the  lady's  "  suspiciously  lingering  smile  "  after  death?    What 
change  in  Usher  increases  the  mental  tension?    Can  you  give  any 
natural  account  of  the  midnight  apprehensions  of  the  visitor?    What 
was  there  "wildly  singular"  in  the  tempest?    Note  the  appropriate- 
ness to  the  situation  of  the  "Mad  Trist";  how  do  the  passages  read 
from  this  work  contribute  to  the  horror  of  the  hour?    Does  the  story 
end  at  the  moment  of  intensest  interest?    Does  the  fall  of  the  house 
give  artistic  value  to  Usher's  views  on  the  sentience  of  inanimate 
things? 

5.  To  what  extent  is  the  story  carried  on  by  means  of  dialogue? 


344  Questions 

Is  there  any  passage  that  seems  redundant — that  does  not  contribute 
perceptibly  to  the  total  effect?  How  does  the  style  compare  in  sim- 
plicity with  that  of  Rip  Van  Winkle?  Do  you  notice  any  passages 
of  marked  rhythmical  power?  How  does  this  story  compare  in  "ob- 
jectivity" with  Irving's  tale?  Does  it  arouse  your  interest  in  any 
particular  locality  or  any  period  of  history?  Has  it  any  moral  signif- 
icance? Does  it  give  you  pleasure?  Does  it  impress  you,  on  the 
whole,  as  beautiful?  If  so,  can  you  say  why? 

V 
THE  GOLD-BUG 

1.  If  this  story  were  divided  into  three  parts  or  chapters,  where 
would  the  divisions  fall?    Has  Poe  clearly  indicated  the  first  division? 
If  the  story  had  been  terminated  at  the  end  of  the  second  part,  would 
it  have  seemed  complete?     Does  your  mind  carry  the  questions 
raised  by  the  first  part  over  the  second  part  into  the  third?    Does 
Poe  direct  our  attention  in  the  third  part  to  his  preconsideration  of 
the  smallest  details  of  the  first  part? 

2.  By  what  details  does  Poe  produce  the  "local  color"  of  Sulli- 
van's Island?    Does  the  locality  seem  a  promising  one  for  seekers  of 
buried  treasure?    Is  there  any  hint  of  a  hunt  for  gold  at  the  narrator's 
first  visit?    Is  Legrand  an  interesting,  unusual,  mysterious  character? 
Is  his  mind  really  deranged?    What  is  Poe's  motive  in  keeping  the 
suggestion  before  us  that  he  is  mentally  unbalanced?    Explain  the 
author's  reason  for  emphasizing  Legrand's  scientific  interests.    Read 
again  the  first  twenty  paragraphs,  and  make  a  list  of  the  points 
about  which  your  curiosity  has  been  roused. 

3.  What  explanation  does  the  narrator  give  to  account  for  his 
readiness  to  accompany  Legrand  on  a  nocturnal  expedition  of  which 
the  object  is  unknown  to  him?    What  is  Poe's  artistic  motive  in  con- 
cealing the  object  of  the  expedition  from  the  narrator  and  from  us? 
Study  the  means  by  which  Jupiter's  climbing  of  the  tulip-tree  is  made 
an  incident  of  breathless  interest.    Why  does  not  Legrand  tell  his 
servant  what  to  look  for  on  the  seventh  limb?    What  is  the  artistic 
motive  for  making  Jupiter  err  in  the  eye  of  the  skull?    To  prolong 
the  story?    To  increase  the  suspense?    To  bring  out  the  elaborate 
nicety  of  the  directions  for  finding  the  treasure?    What  is  suggested 
by  the  statement  that  there  was  no  American  money  in  the  chest? 
Does  the  description  of  the  various  items  of  the  treasure  stimulate 
your  imagination? 


Questions  345 

4.  How  does  the  nature  of  the  interest  in  the  third  division  of  the 
rftory  differ  from  that  in  the  second?    Does  the  third  part  hold  your 
attention  more  or  less  closely  than  the  second?    Does  it  throw  a  new 
light  upon  the  character  of  Legrand?    Make  a  list  of  the  mysteries 
and  problems  that  he  solves.    How  many  of  them  were  present  in 
your  mind  at  the  end  of  the  first  part  of  the  story?    At  what  point 
does  Legrand  exhibit  the  greatest  ingenuity  and  insight?    Is  Jupiter 
an  ornamental  or  a  necessary  character? 

5.  Compare  this  story  with  "The  Fall  of  the  House  of  Usher." 
Is  there  any  internal  evidence  that  the  two  stories  were  written  by 
the  same  author?    In  which  is  the  setting  more  important?    In  which, 
the  events?    In  which,  the  characters?    Is  there  strong  passion  pres- 
ent in  both?    Do  both  play  upon  your  emotions?    What  emotions, 
in  each  case?    Which  makes  the  greater  demands  upon  the  reader's 
intelligence?    In  which  does  the  style  seem  most  carefully  wrought? 
Which  leaves  most  to  the  imagination  of  the  reader?    Are  both  ro- 
mantic?   Does  either  story  contain  any  moral  burden  or  make  any 
memorable  comment  upon  life? 

VI 

THE   SIGNAL-MAN 

1.  Dickens  here  discards  the  traditional  apparatus  of  the  teller  of 
short  stories — the  haunted  chamber,  the  rustling  curtains,  the  obscure 
light  of  a  clouded  moon,  the  midnight  apparitions.    Enumerate  the 
modern  inventions  mentioned  and  other  circumstances  presumably 
unfavorable  to  the  appearance  of  spirits.    Is  the  narrator  a  credu- 
lous person?     How  does  the  signal-man  dispose  of  the  suggestion 
that  the  occurrence  of  the  "memorable  accident"  immediately  follow- 
ing the  apparition  was  a  coincidence?    Why  does  the  narrator  urge 
the  signal-man  to  see  a  physician?    Is  the  narrator  convinced  in  the 
end  of  the  reality  of  the  vision? 

2.  The  story  opens  with  the  shout,  "Halloa!  Below  there!"    Why, 
on  hearing  this,  does  the  signal-man  look  down  the  line?    Why  is 
he  reluctant  to  show  the  narrator  the  path  leading  into  the  cut? 
Why  does  he  warn  his  visitor  not  to  call  out  when  he  comes  and  goes? 
What  is  the  effect  upon  the  reader  of  Dickens's  remark  that  the  signal- 
man "turned  his  face  towards  the  little  bell  when  it  did  NOT  ring"? 
Why  does  the  apparition  preceding  the  death  of  the  lady  take  a  dif- 
ferent form  from  that  which  it  took  preceding  the  other  two  accidents? 


346  Questions 

At  just  what  point  in  the  story  is  the  highest  excitement  reached? 
Where  does  the  final  suspense  end? 

3.  Do  you  feel  well  acquainted  with  the  character  of  any  one  of 
the  persons  introduced  in  this  story?  Can  you  visualize  any  one  of 
them?  Compare  the  amount  of  pure  description  in  the  "  Signal-Man  " 
with  that  in  Hawthorne's  "Ethan  Brand."  Has  the  story  any  his- 
torical background?  Does  it  enrich  your  imagination?  Has  it  beauty, 
humor,  pathos,  poetic  charm?  Compare  the  proportion  of  dialogue 
in  it  with  that  in  the  "Fall  of  the  House  of  Usher."  Is  the  language 
rhythmical,  decorated,  suggestive,  or  simple,  direct,  colloquial,  plain? 
Does  the  story  carry  you  out  of  your  ordinary  self?  Is  it  ingeniously 
contrived?  Is  it  sufficiently  credible  to  pass  as  a  bit  of  the  unsolved 
mystery  of  the  modern,  matter-of-fact-world? 


VII 

THE  LADY,  OR  THE  TIGER? 

1.  Why  are  not  the  time  and  place  of  this  story  more  definitely 
indicated? 

2.  What  is  Stockton's  purpose  in  making  his  analysis  of  the  char- 
acter of  the  king?    Does  he,  in  the  first  paragraph,  call  attention  to 
any  trait  which  is  not  illustrated  by  the  events  of  the  story? 

3.  Is  any  part  of  the  story  conveyed  in  dialogue?    Do  you  find  any 
point  at  which  dialogue  could  be  advantageously  introduced?    What 
is  the  nature  of  the  humor  in  passages  like  the  following? — 

"Nothing  pleased  him  so  much  as  to  make  the  crooked  straight, 
and  crush  down  uneven  places." 

"By  exhibitions  of  manly  and  beastly  valor,  the  minds  of  his  sub- 
jects were  refined  and  cultured." 

"This  was  the  King's  semi-barbaric  method  of  administering  jus- 
tice. Its  perfect  fairness  was  obvious." 

4.  Why  does  Stockton  describe  in  full  the  operation  of  the  King's 
justice  before  he  comes  to  the  case  of  the  young  man  in  love  with  the 
princess?     Sum  up  all  the  reasons  for  believing  that  the  princess 
pointed  to  the  door  of  the  lady,  and  then  the  reasons  for  believing 
that  she  indicated  the  door  of  the  tiger.    Is  the  case  equally  strong 
for  both  suppositions?    Do  some  of  the  reasons  "work  both  ways"? 

5.  How  would  it  have  affected  the  story,  if  Stockton  had  answered 
the  question  which  he  leaves  to  you?    Does  the  story  lend  itself  to 
allegorical  interpretation?    Is  it,  taken  literally,  probable?    Is  its 


Questions  347 

popularity  due  to  the  presence  in  it  of  any  permanent  and  general 
"  human  interest"?  Is  your  own  theory  regarding  the  conduc^  of  the 
princess  based  upon  the  assumption  that  she  is  a  barbarian  or  upon 
the  assumption  that  she  is  like  young  women  of  your  own  acquaint- 
ance? Have  you  ever  been  compelled  to  make  a  decision  between 
a  "lady"  and  a  "tiger,"  with  no  other  guide  than  "impartial  and  in- 
corruptible chance"? 

VIII 

THE  THREE  STRANGERS 

1.  The  first  division  of  this  story  extends  to  the  point  at  which  the 
first  stranger  ascends  the  hill.    Notice  carefully  the  order  in  which 
the  stage,  setting,  and  subordinate  characters  are  constructed:  the 
broad  aspect  of  the  country;  the  cottage  placed  on  the  down;  specifi- 
cation of  season,  hour,  weather;  rainy  exterior  of  the  house;  the  gen- 
eral festive  aspect  of  the  interior;  the  company  as  a  whole;  Shepherd 
Fennel  and  his  wife;  Oliver  Giles  and  the  dancers.    What  bearing 
upon  subsequent  events  have  these  facts:  that  the  house  is  placed 
near  the  crossing  of  two  footpaths  on  a  lonely  and  unsheltered  hill; 
that  the  house  is  "five  miles"  from  town;  that  the  storm  is  heavy; 
that  the  particular  event  which  has  called  these  rural  people  together 
is  a  christening? 

2.  From  what  point  of  view  does  Hardy  describe  the  approach  of 
the  first  stranger?    Why  does  he  not  tell  us  at  once  who  he  is?    By 
what  successive  strokes  does  he  deepen  our  suspicion  that  there  is 
something  wrong  with  the  man,  before  he  knocks  at  the  door?    What 
is  the  significance  of  the  fact  that  the  stranger  has  lost  his  pipe  and 
his  tobacco  box?    Why  does  he  set  to  stirring  the  fire  when  he  hears 
a  knock  at  the  door? 

3.  How  are  the  approach,  appearance,  and  conduct  of  the  second 
stranger  contrasted  with  those  of  the  first?    Does  he  at  any  time  be- 
have like  a  man  who  fears  detection?    What  attitude  towards  him 
does  the  first  stranger  take?    Does  he  overdo  his  assurance  to  the 
extent  of  rousing  your  distrust?    Does  the  second  stranger's  fondness 
for  liquor  serve  merely  to  characterize  him,  or  has  it  some  value  in 
the  unfolding  of  the  plot? 

4.  Notice  the  quickening  of  the  narrative  pace  from  the  time 
when  the  third  stranger  appears.    Have  you  any  inkling,  till  the  final 
disclosure,  of  his  relationship  to  the  man  in  the  corner?    Do  the 


348  Questions 

humorous  stupidity  and  ignorance  of  the  constable  lessen  or  intensify 
the  sefiousness  of  the  man-hunt?  How  has  Hardy  prepared  us  to 
rejoice  at  the  escape  of  the  first  stranger?  Why  is  it — technically — 
necessary  that  the  third  stranger  be  caught? 

5.  Is  it  possible  to  summarize  this  story  in  a  sentence  of  moderate 
length?  Can  you  say  whether  characters  or  whether  situations  and 
events  are  here  regarded  as  of  primary  importance?  Of  how  many 
persons  do  you  retain  distinct  impressions?  Does  the  author  betray 
sympathy  with  his  creatures?  Does  he  show  intimate  familiarity 
with  scenes  of  rural  life  and  comprehensions  of  the  minds  of  rustics? 
Does  the  story  cast  any  reflections  upon  society?  Is  its  undertone 
comic?  tragic?  ironic?  Has  Hardy's  art  anything  in  common  with 
that  of  Irving  or  Poe? 

IX 
WILL  o'  THE  MILL 

1.  Can  you  say  at  what  time  or  in  what  country  Will  o'  the  Mill 
lived?    Are  such  facts  of  any  particular  importance  in  a  story  of  this 
sort?    Is  Will  a  highly  differentiated  individual?    What  type  of  life 
does  he  represent?   Have  you  known  men  of  his  temperament?   Have 
you  ever  felt  anything  of  his  disposition  in  yourself?    Is  he  presented 
as  a  man  to  be  imitated  and  admired,  or  to  be  pitied? 

2.  Mention  all  the  important  events  related  in  the  first  division  of 
the  story?    What  stimulated  Will's  desire  to  see  the  great  world? 
Did  he  expect  to  find  riches  or  happiness  in  it?    Exactly  what  sort  of 
satisfaction  did  he  hope  to  obtain  by  leaving  the  "fading  valley''? 
Why  does  Stevenson  represent  Will's  decisive  counsellor  as  a  "fat 
young  man"?    What  is  the  difference  between  the  temper  of  the  fat 
young  man  and  Will's? 

3.  Is  Will's  courtship  to  be  taken  as  a  pleasant  interlude  in  an 
otherwise  dull  life?    What  was  there  in  Will  to  attract  a  girl  like 
Marjory?    How  does  Will's  regard  for  her  affect  his  emotions?    Is 
his  attitude  towards  her  reverent,  idolatrous,  complimentary?    Is  he 
really  in  love  with  her?    What  do  you  think  of  him  when  he  says, 
"I  do  not  wish  to  be  held  as  committing  myself"?    What  is  the  anal- 
ogy between  his  attitude  towards  marriage  and  his  attitude  towards 
picking  flowers?    Why  does  Marjory  lie  to  her  father  concerning  the 
reasons  why  she  and  Will  are  to  break  off  their  engagement?    What 
does  Stevenson  mean  when  he  says  that  there  were  many  things  about 
this  girl  which  were  beyond  Will's  comprehension? 


Questions  349 

4.  Is  Will's  later  life  embittered  by  Marjory's  marriage?    What 
satisfactions  does  he  find  in  his  maturity  and  old  age?    Is  he  a  useful 
or  amiable  member  of  his  community?    Is  his  death  a  sad  note  in  the 
story?    If  not,  why? 

5.  What  unifies  the  three  divisions  of  the  story?    Is  the  interest 
intenser  as  you  proceed?    Is  there  mystery  or  suspense  at  any  point? 
Could  you  hold  a  child's  attention  by  telling  him  the  plot?    Has  the 
reading  left  in  your  memory  any  distinct  images  of  persons  or  scenes? 
What  passages  pleased  you  most?    Is  the  style  always  clear?  fluent? 
natural? 


THE  SIRE  DE  MALETROIT'S  DOOR 

1.  Does  Stevenson  spend  an  unnecessarily  long  time  in  bringing 
Denis  into  the  presence  of  the  Sire  de  Maletroit?    For  what  purpose 
does  he  describe  the  darkness  of  the  night  and  the  intricacy  of  the 
lanes  of  Chateau  Landon?    Why  does  he  go  so  much  into  detail  in 
describing  the  house  which  Denis  is  about  to  enter?    Has  the  pursuit 
of  the  armed  men  any  artistic  value,  except  as  it  serves  as  a  motive 
for  Denis's  retreat  to  the  porch?    What  descriptive  passages  and  what 
incidents  after  his  entrance  contribute  to  the  historical  "color"  of 
the  story? 

2.  What  conception  of  the  character  of  the  Sire  de  Maletroit  is 
conveyed  by  the  description  of  his  physical  appearance  as  he  sits  "on 
a  high  chair  beside  the  chimney"?     Notice  the  details  of  this  word 
portrait;  could  a  painter  reproduce  it?    What  details  of  the  old  man's 
conduct  convince  Denis  that  he  has  to  do  with  a  lunatic?    With  your 
knowledge  of  the  situation,  should  you  say  that  his  behavior  is 
natural  and  in  character? 

3.  What  passes  between  Denis  and  Blanche  the  first  time  that  they 
are  left  alone?    What  is  his  mood  and  what  hers  in  this  interview? 
Is  there  any  indication  that  either  is  inclined  at  all  to  the  other?    Are 
the  scene,  the  attitudes,  the  actions,  and  the  dialogue  such  as  could 
be  represented  on  a  stage?    Is  any  important  development  of  the  re- 
lation between  Denis  and  Blanche  conveyed  in  the  words  of  the 
author  as  distinguished  from  the  speeches  of  his  characters? 

4.  Trace  carefully  the  changes  in  Denis  and  Blanche  from  the  time 
when  the  Sire  de  Maletroit  sends  them  back,  to  the  end  of  the  story. 
Why  does  Denis  refuse  her  first  proffer  of  marriage?    What  precisely 
is  the  cause  of  Blanche's  weeping  at  this  point?    Has  his  attitude 


35°  Questions 

towards  her  altered  when  he  asks  her  to  refrain  from  sobbing?  What 
is  the  effect  of  his  speech  on  death  upon  the  girl?  Does  he  pity  him- 
self as  he  makes  it?  What  is  her  master  stroke  in  winning  him?  Why 
does  Stevenson  introduce  the  intimation  of  dawn  before  Denis  de- 
clares his  love?  Has  satisfactory  disposition  been  made  of  Florimond 
de  Champdivers? 

5.  Is  there  novelty  in  the  characters  of  any  of  the  persons  in  this 
story?  Are  they  conventional  figures  of  romance?  Do  you  feel  con- 
cerned at  any  moment  for  the  outcome  of  the  plot?  Does  any  passage 
excite  strong  emotion?  Is  fifteenth  century  France  a  fresh  field  for 
English  fiction?  Is  this  story  related  in  a  significant  way  to  the  his- 
tory of  the  times? 

XI 

THE  COURTING  OF  T'NOWHEAD'S  BELL 

1.  The  portion  of  the  story  up  to  the  point  where  Sam'l  knocks  at 
T'nowhead's  door  may  be  regarded  as  introductory.    Is  the  conduct 
of  the  lovers  represented  as  peculiar  to  themselves  or  as  the  common 
behavior  of  young  men  of  Thrums  in  similar  circumstances?    What 
details  illustrate  the  gossiping  habits  of  the  community?    How  is  the 
religious  atmosphere  of  the  town  emphasized?    What  incidents  illus- 
trate the  inexpressiveness  and  slow  wits  of  the  inhabitants?    What 
characteristics  of  Sam'l  appear  in  his  conversation  with  Eppie  Fargus? 
With  Renders?    With  the  idlers  beneath  the  town-clock?    Do  these 
conversations  bear  directly  upon  the  business  of  the  story — the  court- 
ing? 

2.  What  is  Barrie's  motive  in  making  T'nowhead  favor  Sanders 
and  T'nowhead's  wife  favor  Sam'l?    How  does  Sam'l  display  the  po- 
liteness which  he  is  alleged  to  possess?    How  does  T'nowhead  show 
his  liking  for  Sanders?    What  progress  is  made  in  the  courtship  at  the 
first  visit?    Why  does  not  Barrie  report  the  conversation  that  passed 
between  Sam'l  and  Bell  over  the  potatoes? 

3.  What  are  we  to  infer  as  to  the  character  of  the  courtship  during 
the  month  that  elapses  between  the  first  visit  and  the  "crisis"?    In 
the  escape  from  the  kirk  which  of  the  lovers  is  the  more  ridiculous? 
In  their  race  for  a  wife  which  seems  inspired  rather  by  jealousy  than 
by  love?    How  do  the  members  of  the  congregation  contribute  to 
the  interest  and  humor  of  the  occasion?    What  is  the  first  indication 
that  Bell  favors  Sanders?    What  is  the  significance  of  Sanders's  re- 
marks while  he  is  poking  the  pig? 


Questions  351 

4.  At  what  point  does  Sam'l  begin  to  waver  in  his  desire  to  many 
Bell?    Make  a  summary  of  the  various  motives  which  influence  him 
in  turning  her  over  to  his  friend.    Has  adequate  preparation  been 
made  for  Bell's  acquiescence  in  the  transfer? 

5.  Does  the  dialect  detract  from  or  contribute  to  the  pleasure  of  the 
story?    Test  your  opinion  on  this  matter  by  turning  a  page  or  two 
of  the  dialogue  into  standard  English.     Can  you  say  whether  the 
primary  interest  in  this  story  is  in  the  "local  color,"  the  plot,  or  the 
characters?    Explain  the  humor  of  the  following  passages:  (a)  "It 
was  Saturday  evening — the  night  in  the  week  when  Auld  Licht  young 
mea  fell  in  love";  (b)  "Weel,  since  ye're  sae  pressin',  I'll  bide"; 

(c)  "A  body  should  be  mair  deleeberate  in  a  thing  o'  the  kind"; 

(d)  "  We  hae  haen  deaths  in  our  family  too." 


XII 
PHCEBE 

1.  Do  you  believe  that  "there  is  such  a  thing  as  luck"?    What  is 
O.  Henry's  purpose  in  the  first  five  paragraphs  of  the  story,  in  which 
the  general  problem  of  luck  is  raised?     Does  the  author  diminish 
your  interest  in  the  fortunes  of  Kearny  by  leading  you  from  the 
outset  to  expect  to  see  him  in  an  uninterrupted  series  of  accidents? 
What  is  the  nature  of  the  suspense? 

2.  What  means  does  O.  Henry  employ  to  make  the  bad  luck  of 
Kearny  a  matter  of  more  than  individual  concern?     What  is  the 
artistic  function — that  is  to  say,  what  is  the  effect  upon  the  reader — 
of  the  buoyant  optimism  of  Captain  Malone,  Carlos  Quintana,  and 
Don  Rafael  Valdevia  as  indicated  in  his  letter  to  Malone? 

3.  Why  does  O.  Henry  have  Malone  dismiss  Kearny?    How  is  your 
attitude  towards  Kearny  affected  by  his  return?    When  the  meteor 
explodes  do  you  share  in  the  restored  confidence  of  Kearny  and 
Malone?    If  not,  analyze  your  reasons  for  continuing  to  expect  mis- 
fortune. 

4.  What  is  O.  Henry's  artistic  purpose  in  making  the  entrance 
of  the  revolutionary  troops  into  the  capital  so  quiet  and  unopposed? 
What  would  be  the  effect  of  changing  the  order  of  events,  so  that  the 
hole  in  the  ceiling  should  be  discovered  first,  then  the  "darkish  stone, " 
and  last  the  wound  in  Don  Rafael's  head? 

5.  Is  the  total  effect  of  the  story  comic  or  tragic?    What  detracts 
from  the  seriousness  of  the  eulogy  on  Don  Rafael?    Is  Captain  Ma- 


352  Questions 

Ion  6  a  high-minded  soldier?  By  what  means  is  the  importance  of 
the  revolution  belittled?  Is  the  information  of  the  Tulane  professor 
intended  to  bear  upon  what  precedes  it  or  upon  what  follows?  What 
are  the  chief  constituents  of  the  "local  color"? 


xin 

THE  MAN  WHO  WAS 

1.  "Local  color"  contributes  in  a  very  considerable  measure  to 
the  effect  produced  by  this  story.    We  are  never  for  a  moment  allowed 
to  forget  that  we  are  in  an  Oriental  country  among  mixed  races.    The 
dusky  background  is  Indian:  collect  all  the  references  to  Indian 
places,  persons,  animals,  habits,  garb,  speech,  climate.    In  the  middle 
distance,  so  to  speak,  is  painted  in  brilliant  colors  the  social  life  of 
the  officers  of  the  British  army:  collect  the  details.     In  the  fore- 
ground appear  the  Russian  Dirkovitch  in  dull  green  uniform  and  the 
dingy  relics  of  the  "man  who  was":  collect  the  "colors"  of  Russia 
and  Siberia. 

2.  The  effect  of  the  story  depends  more  directly,  however,  upon  the 
author's  success  in  conveying  to  his  readers  a  lively  conception  of  the 
•spirit  of  the  White  Hussars:  British  pride,  jealousy,  and  patriotism, 
coupled  with  an  intense  esprit  de  corps.    Find  illustrations  of  all  of 
these  traits.    How  do  you  explain  the  custom  of  breaking  the  glass 
after  drinking  the  queen's  health? 

3.  Notice  the  various  expressions  applied  to  Lieutenant  Limmason 
before  his  identity  is  disclosed:  "  the  limp  heap  of  rags,"  "  the  bundle," 
"the  rag-bound  horror,"  "it,"  etc.    By  what  other  means  does  Kip- 
ling reenforce  the  idea  that  he  is  a  crumpled  and  broken  piece  of  hu- 
manity?   What  is  the  most  touching  moment  in  the  course  of  Lim- 
mason's  examination  of  the  mess  room?    What  is  implied  by  the  fact 
that  Limmason  explains  his  past  in  Russian  and  to  Dirkovitch,  in- 
stead of  speaking  in  English  to  his  fellow-officers?    Does  the  title  of 
the  story  remind  you  of  a  phrase  in  Virgil? 

4.  By  what  means  are  you  made  aware  of  the  emotions  of  the  va- 
rious persons  at  the  dinner — by  the  acts  and  ejaculations  of  the  men 
themselves,  or  by  the  comment  of  the  author?    Is  the  crisp,  hard, 
curt,  nonchalant,  slangy  style  suitable  for  relating  a  pathetic  incident? 
Do  you  think  that  Kipling  has  here  deliberately  adopted  the  tone  of 
mess  room  talk?    Compare  his  style  in  other  stories  on  various  themes. 
Do  you  prefer  the  style  of  Irving?   Of  Stevenson? 


Questions  353 

5.  Examine  your  own  feelings  after  reading  the  story.  Has  your 
interest  depended  mainly  upon  the  novelty  of  the  scene  and  the 
incidents?  Have  you  been  introduced  to  unfamiliar  aspects  of  human 
nature?  Have  you  been  pleased?  excited?  instructed?  Has  the 
story  made  you  reflect?  If  so,  upon  what?  Compare  the  final  im- 
pression made  by  "The  Man  Who  Was"  with  the  state  of  your  mind 
at  the  conclusion  of  "Ethan  Brand"  and  "  Will  O'  The  Mill." 


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